I think I want to write about something else for a while.
Our forty-fifth wedding anniversary was the end of July. For a few years we celebrated in San Augustine, FL. Janet and I found a nice tree house restaurant with live music. The musician played “Let It Be” while we pretended to dance. Last year she was too sick for the trip and wouldn’t have been able to walk up the stairs to the restaurant. This year I wanted to mark the occasion by going to our favorite fondue restaurant. Our son and daughter bought gift cards to the place. My son would go with me. Then he found out he had to work that night at the state prison. Instead I went to a restaurant in town with a couple Janet liked a lot.
It was good. I think that’s what life is about. Sometimes plans don’t work out the way you want them. You make new plans and you have a good time. No speculations that the original plans might have been better. They didn’t happen. What actually happened was in of itself good. I can’t ask for more than that.
I am still wearing my wedding ring. It’s been on my finger for forty-five years, and I don’t see any pressing reasons to take it off right now. My daughter selected the jewelry she want from her mother’s collection. I am giving other items away to friends that I think might appreciate them. The act of sharing is always gratifying.
I still comment on how much Janet would have liked the colors in a lady’s dress, how much she would have enjoyed going to a production of Pirates of Penzance set in outer space or how she loved certain kinds of food. I could worry that people around me are tiring of me mentioning things like that; but, if truth be told, I don’t care if they are tired of it or not.
Basically, I’ve come to appreciate the joy of the moment, laughing with friends and not giving a damn about the opinions of people who don’t care about me. I know for a fact the whole world can change in three weeks whether I like it or not. If I’m still here in three weeks I still have hope to be happy.
Besides, I hear Janet’s voice in my head. She’s asking me why I’m still rehashing all of this. For God’s sake, she’s telling me, write something funny.