Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad

My parents met in when my dad was home in Detroit for a little while between assignments or between jobs or something like that. He asked his younger sister, who was friends with my mom, to fix him up on a date. He said he wanted someone cute and smart to hang out with, but that it wasn't going to be anything serious.

Their first date was a basketball game. One of the teams ran a pick-and-roll. My dad leaned over to my mom and said, "that's a pick and roll. That's when the team on offense--"

She cut him off. "I know what a pick and roll is."

And that was it for him. He was sunk.

They were married 41 years ago today. As far as I can tell, they are as happy together and have as much fun together as they ever did.

What I find remarkable isn't so much that their marriage has stayed strong for so long, but how young they were when they met and married. My mother was 22 and my dad was 24 when they got married.

That blows my mind.

When I was 22, I was in law school. I was mature enough to handle my life, but absolutely nowhere near ready to get married. When it came to men, I was an idiot at 22. I look at the guys that I was attracted to or dated or had crushes on back then, and there's no way any of them would have been right for me. I didn't get married until I was 35, and even though I'd like to have a little more time to have children, (by the time my mom was 35, she had 3 kids, the oldest of whom was 10), I'm glad I waited, because I simply wasn't ready before.

I think there are a couple of reasons my parents' relationship stayed so strong. My dad is a goofball, and my mom thinks he's hilarious. He tells the same jokes over and over, and she continues to laugh. They're also both really smart, and they have similar interests -- politics, books, art, travel. But they also both pursue separate interests - my mom goes to the opera with her best friend, reads mystery novels that my dad looks down his nose at, and can watch the same movies over and over. My dad likes to go on long solo bike rides, reads almost nothing but history books, and is obsessed with college sports.

When we've talked about it, my mom has pointed out that marriage is really a crap shoot. People change over time, and for every couple that weathers those changes and grows together, there's another that simply grows apart. Who they were when they met is vastly different from who they are years later.

I love Jason. But I'm a realist. I have no idea if we will still be together 40 years from now (assuming we're both alive). I'd like to think we will be, but you never know.

In any event, I feel lucky to have such a wonderful example of a strong marriage set for me. In addition to being great parents and great people, when I'm trying to figure out how to deal with a problem in my marriage, it's nice to have such a great couple as my mom and dad to look up to.