"I Do" And Other Platitudes

After 35 years my husband and I are getting married again. We’re not renewing our vows, we are getting married again. I haven’t researched it but I’m pretty certain it isn't considered bigamy if you are in two marriages at the same time -- but to the same person.

We have been making our plans for several months now and keeping them secret, which has been such fun! We cuddle by candlelight with a glass of wine, and decide things like the pastor (lined up) and the place (decided). We're still kicking around the date and time, but that of course will require more candelight and cabernet.

Our first and most important decision has been that this time we will definitely not have children.

It isn’t that we don’t love the children we already have, because we love them very much and are very proud of them… how they have chosen to live their lives, and all that they are accomplishing. The reason for our decision is that when we had children, we made our lives all about them. We did our best to raise them to become upstanding adults, and then… they left us… to become upstanding adults.

Of course it’s never that simple. Not like they were all here one day and all gone the next, leaving me with an empty nest in which to rattle around. When my first son moved out I recall throwing myself into my husband’s arms, sobbing and saying “I wasn’t done with him yet!” When my second son moved into his own apartment, it was a short distance from our home and I thought he'd always stay close (wrong), but we still had our daughter, who was only four at the time.

That was, I believe, where we ran into trouble. She was the center of our universe. If it is possible to love a child too much, we did. When she left at 18 to join the Air Force and begin a life of her own, I said, “You are not supposed to have a life of your own now! I never said now! I always told you some dayl! Some day you will have a life of your own, I've said. I never used the word now!” My laments fell on deaf ears. She was out the door before I could finish my pathetic plea for more of her. Since then we’ve been the safety net she has fallen into occasionally, which is as it should be; however, what do safety nets do when they aren’t being put to use? They just hang around… feeling useless and unimportant. Until the next time.

So it has taken us years to adjust, and I believe we are finally okay with the current scheme of things. We have young grandchildren we dote on and adore, and an older set who drift in and out (mostly out) of our lives, busily living their own. Frank has his clients and his meetings, I have my quiet, cozy home on a good day and too many irons in the fire on other days (weeks, months). We have a dog, a cat, and a horse… all warm and fuzzy-ish. But most importantly, we have each other.

And now a wedding to plan!

Looking to the future this time is far different from the first time, when our concerns were primarily for our children and teaching them as best we could to tread with caution upon their chosen paths. We’re closer now to the end of our own path, and our long term concerns center on how we will walk it alone when one of us is left without the other, as life usually decrees. Getting married again will help us turn our attention from the others we love, and to focus more on ourelves as newlyweds are entitled to do.

A recent line from the TV series Brothers & Sisters comes to mind. Nora said recently to her two grown daughters (asking her to settle a squabble between them), “No! I don’t have to fix it for you! That’s not my job anymore!” Our relationships with our grown children sometimes catch us with shakier steps and thinner skin, but now I realize I don’t have to fix it with them, as I've tried so hard to do during past squabbles. It’s not my job anymore!

My job is to be in love with Frank, plan our wedding, and this time I won't even have to worry about music, a cake, or who catches the boquet. The first time we got married we knew we wanted to grow old together. This time, we know we are doing exactly that. Where did the last 35 years go? I just don't know...

But sometimes platitudes say it all, like: What’s done is done, it is what it is, and what will be will be.