I’ve been married to the most wonderful man in the world for 23 years. Last year about this time I wrote about forgetting our anniversary and having my amazing husband surprise me with flowers and grilled rib-eyes for lunch. This year we both forgot until I was reminded by some Facebook friends just before heading out to church Sunday morning.
Our celebration troubles actually began three years ago on our 20th anniversary. I hope you’ll enjoy re-reading that story this week:
I remember once when I was a child — probably around 10 years old — my mother opened a piece of mail one morning and burst into laughter. Of course I thought I must know what had tickled my mom’s funny bone, but she could barely rein in her laughter long enough to tell me. It turns out she had opened an anniversary card from a close friend and my mom realized she had completely forgotten about the anniversary of the day she and my father exchanged vows. I remember being absolutely appalled that someone could forget such an important day in her life. And now here I am following in her footsteps.
It’s not that I don’t love my husband or that he doesn’t love me or that we don’t have a happy marriage. In fact, I do realize how blessed I am to be married to a Godly man who makes me laugh when I need to lighten up, lifts me up when I need encouragement, and always shares my frustrations and successes associated with parenting our children.
It’s just that our anniversary happens to fall during soccer season and both our boys play soccer. The week prior to our anniversary held four soccer games and an out-of-town professional development for me, in addition to our family’s other responsibilities.
The next week brought four soccer games between Monday and Thursday and Jeff had a faculty meeting on the date of our actual anniversary. Add that faculty meeting to our regular Wednesday church service and you get a busy night of squeezing in homework, a fast-food dinner and racing the clock to get the kids in bed in time to prevent grouchiness the next day.
Since the calendar for Saturday after our anniversary was packed as well, with Nat having one game in Glasgow and Chris’s team being scheduled to travel to Owensboro for three games, we couldn’t very well plan to celebrate alone that day, either. We finally decided we would try to celebrate with our children by going somewhere nice to eat for some meal between or after all the soccer games.
Ironically, when rain cancelled the Owensboro games on that Saturday, we decided against asking the grandparents to watch the kids so we could go out and celebrate.
Instead, we stayed home to clean house and do laundry. We discussed taking the whole family and going out to eat, but then we reconsidered and Jeff went to pick up Cracker Barrel so we’d have a good meal without cluttering the kitchen or packing up the kids to go out in the rain.
At least we weren’t as bad as my parents that one year, though. We did remember our anniversary; we just couldn’t find the time to squeeze in a celebration.
If anyone had told me 20 years ago that we’d be too busy to celebrate our anniversary, I would’ve accused that person of being nuts. I wouldn’t have been able to imagine anything more important than celebrating the day I began my marriage to my life partner and best friend. But back then I wasn’t a mother or a teacher, I was only half as old as I am now, and I didn’t understand that our day-to-day life together would be celebration enough. [rc]
Alisa Maysey
E-Mail: alisamaysey@yahoo.com
Associated Press content © 2009.
Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
September 23, 2009
USA: Normal life enough of a celebration
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GLASGOW, Kentucky / Glasgow Daily Times / Features / September 23, 2009
Normal life enough of a celebration
By Alisa Maysey, Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW —
I’ve been married to the most wonderful man in the world for 23 years. Last year about this time I wrote about forgetting our anniversary and having my amazing husband surprise me with flowers and grilled rib-eyes for lunch. This year we both forgot until I was reminded by some Facebook friends just before heading out to church Sunday morning.
Our celebration troubles actually began three years ago on our 20th anniversary. I hope you’ll enjoy re-reading that story this week:
I remember once when I was a child — probably around 10 years old — my mother opened a piece of mail one morning and burst into laughter. Of course I thought I must know what had tickled my mom’s funny bone, but she could barely rein in her laughter long enough to tell me. It turns out she had opened an anniversary card from a close friend and my mom realized she had completely forgotten about the anniversary of the day she and my father exchanged vows. I remember being absolutely appalled that someone could forget such an important day in her life. And now here I am following in her footsteps.
It’s not that I don’t love my husband or that he doesn’t love me or that we don’t have a happy marriage. In fact, I do realize how blessed I am to be married to a Godly man who makes me laugh when I need to lighten up, lifts me up when I need encouragement, and always shares my frustrations and successes associated with parenting our children.
It’s just that our anniversary happens to fall during soccer season and both our boys play soccer. The week prior to our anniversary held four soccer games and an out-of-town professional development for me, in addition to our family’s other responsibilities.
The next week brought four soccer games between Monday and Thursday and Jeff had a faculty meeting on the date of our actual anniversary. Add that faculty meeting to our regular Wednesday church service and you get a busy night of squeezing in homework, a fast-food dinner and racing the clock to get the kids in bed in time to prevent grouchiness the next day.
Since the calendar for Saturday after our anniversary was packed as well, with Nat having one game in Glasgow and Chris’s team being scheduled to travel to Owensboro for three games, we couldn’t very well plan to celebrate alone that day, either. We finally decided we would try to celebrate with our children by going somewhere nice to eat for some meal between or after all the soccer games.
Ironically, when rain cancelled the Owensboro games on that Saturday, we decided against asking the grandparents to watch the kids so we could go out and celebrate.
Instead, we stayed home to clean house and do laundry. We discussed taking the whole family and going out to eat, but then we reconsidered and Jeff went to pick up Cracker Barrel so we’d have a good meal without cluttering the kitchen or packing up the kids to go out in the rain.
At least we weren’t as bad as my parents that one year, though. We did remember our anniversary; we just couldn’t find the time to squeeze in a celebration.
If anyone had told me 20 years ago that we’d be too busy to celebrate our anniversary, I would’ve accused that person of being nuts. I wouldn’t have been able to imagine anything more important than celebrating the day I began my marriage to my life partner and best friend. But back then I wasn’t a mother or a teacher, I was only half as old as I am now, and I didn’t understand that our day-to-day life together would be celebration enough. [rc]
Alisa Maysey
E-Mail: alisamaysey@yahoo.com
Associated Press content © 2009.
Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
I’ve been married to the most wonderful man in the world for 23 years. Last year about this time I wrote about forgetting our anniversary and having my amazing husband surprise me with flowers and grilled rib-eyes for lunch. This year we both forgot until I was reminded by some Facebook friends just before heading out to church Sunday morning.
Our celebration troubles actually began three years ago on our 20th anniversary. I hope you’ll enjoy re-reading that story this week:
I remember once when I was a child — probably around 10 years old — my mother opened a piece of mail one morning and burst into laughter. Of course I thought I must know what had tickled my mom’s funny bone, but she could barely rein in her laughter long enough to tell me. It turns out she had opened an anniversary card from a close friend and my mom realized she had completely forgotten about the anniversary of the day she and my father exchanged vows. I remember being absolutely appalled that someone could forget such an important day in her life. And now here I am following in her footsteps.
It’s not that I don’t love my husband or that he doesn’t love me or that we don’t have a happy marriage. In fact, I do realize how blessed I am to be married to a Godly man who makes me laugh when I need to lighten up, lifts me up when I need encouragement, and always shares my frustrations and successes associated with parenting our children.
It’s just that our anniversary happens to fall during soccer season and both our boys play soccer. The week prior to our anniversary held four soccer games and an out-of-town professional development for me, in addition to our family’s other responsibilities.
The next week brought four soccer games between Monday and Thursday and Jeff had a faculty meeting on the date of our actual anniversary. Add that faculty meeting to our regular Wednesday church service and you get a busy night of squeezing in homework, a fast-food dinner and racing the clock to get the kids in bed in time to prevent grouchiness the next day.
Since the calendar for Saturday after our anniversary was packed as well, with Nat having one game in Glasgow and Chris’s team being scheduled to travel to Owensboro for three games, we couldn’t very well plan to celebrate alone that day, either. We finally decided we would try to celebrate with our children by going somewhere nice to eat for some meal between or after all the soccer games.
Ironically, when rain cancelled the Owensboro games on that Saturday, we decided against asking the grandparents to watch the kids so we could go out and celebrate.
Instead, we stayed home to clean house and do laundry. We discussed taking the whole family and going out to eat, but then we reconsidered and Jeff went to pick up Cracker Barrel so we’d have a good meal without cluttering the kitchen or packing up the kids to go out in the rain.
At least we weren’t as bad as my parents that one year, though. We did remember our anniversary; we just couldn’t find the time to squeeze in a celebration.
If anyone had told me 20 years ago that we’d be too busy to celebrate our anniversary, I would’ve accused that person of being nuts. I wouldn’t have been able to imagine anything more important than celebrating the day I began my marriage to my life partner and best friend. But back then I wasn’t a mother or a teacher, I was only half as old as I am now, and I didn’t understand that our day-to-day life together would be celebration enough. [rc]
Alisa Maysey
E-Mail: alisamaysey@yahoo.com
Associated Press content © 2009.
Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.
