Where were you 25 years ago? What was happening in your life? Where were you living? Who were you friends with?
Perhaps dig a little deeper, and ask yourself – who were you 25 years ago compared to who you are now? What mattered to you most then, and is that still true of you now?
And here’s the killer – would you want to go back to that time, that person, that life stage? Or – despite all that has happened in the intervening years, not least of which is the unstoppable aging process – would you choose to remain here, now, this version of you?
Why all the reflection? Well, this week sees MB and I celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.
Gosh Mum, that’s a quarter of a century!”
…observed Elder Nearest-and-Dearest.
9,125 days, give or take the odd leap year.
Gosh indeed.
We clearly haven’t spent all 9,125 days together. In fact, for the first 6 or 7 years we were married, MB worked such ludicrously long hours as a vet that I hardly saw him at all from one end of the week to the other, and often hardly at all at weekends.
But I digress. Our silver wedding anniversary.
Here’s the thing that I do find slightly weird. I remember clearly my parents’ silver wedding anniversary, and the party. And I remember thinking that they were so, well – old. Middle aged.
Shudder.
And here stand MB and I, at the same life stage. I would hate to be described or perceived as middle aged, and yet 25 years is an awfully long time, and there is no question that we have grown up and grown older.
In many ways, much of our married life has not been easy. Depression has been a sleeping partner within our marriage, only relatively recently lessening it’s grip. For many years we did not speak of this. As others have testified, mental health issues are hard to talk about, and often buried under the surface. MB’s depression came and went, but when it last reared it’s ghastly head a few years ago, we both saw the necessity of opening up more.
Letting others in and seeking help.
I have written at length here about our experiences of depression. If you, or someone you know, is living alongside someone with depression, I encourage you to read the Black Dog series. Not that I am an expert, or have any answers. But talking and saying, this is us, this is where we are at, is an important start.
Here’s the thing though:
As we mark this quarter of a century anniversary together, would I have it any different?
Would I have chosen this for us, for MB?
No of course not. It has been awful for him, and not much fun for me.
But we are both fully aware – and very thankful – that we are who we are now, and have the relationship that we have because of what we have worked and lived through together.
Where in your life can you say the same?
What circumstances have you lived through that at the time were stretching, trying, downright awful, but that have shaped you positively into who you are today?
The trick here is to pay attention to what is going on. What are we learning about ourselves in this set of circumstances? And how we apply those lessons intentionally when we face similar circumstances in the future?
This is what we will explore next week. But for this week, as we celebrate the achievement that is our silver wedding anniversary, I am reminded again that there is much to be thankful for in life.