In a petite, rundown wedding chapel off the Vegas strip that still managed to possess a salmon-colored-charm, bystanders witnessed a miracle.
“Ada baby, uh huh, I will never leave you at Heartbreak Hotel.”
“Frank, baby, son, I will never treat you like a hound dog. And I will never return you to sender… it’s too late.”
These were the vows that my parents exchanged after fifty years of wedded bliss. It was a miracle for several reasons: they made it 50 years, they said they loved each other publicly and my mom refrained from brushing the dandruff off my dad’s collar. It was only appropriate, due to my family’s inability to be truly sentimental, that they would say they loved each other after fifty years by imitating an Elvis impersonator imitating Elvis. And yet I’ve learned to take what I can get and found their expression of love with a quivering upper lip and karate stances to be quite sentimental indeed.
Fifty years of marriage and they are still together. It is a mountain most couples hope to climb, unless of you course you got married after 40, in which case it would be a mountain you cheer younger couples to climb. I can’t imagine what couples go through in that amount of time, from pure joy to nagging regret. Since my marriage has almost reached 3 months, I’m practically an expert on all things relationshipy. Current lesson: how to unwillingly become a social pariah because of your title.
In Vegas, I had my first experience of being socially shut down because I’m married. My sisters, cousins and their man friends were standing in a circle chatting about the evening plans right outside the casino. The men clearly were bachelors and looking to create a story they will love to tell but will regret to have lived. While my cousin was talking about good places to have lunch, I mentioned a good place that I had had lunch with the “h” word… husband. It was without recourse and immediately afterwards that their eyes shifted to the left as they processed the fact that they just wasted 2 minutes of their lives on small talk with a woman who was married. God forbid! I have been rejected before. But I’ve never been rejected in a situation where I was not doing anything to warrant rejection and yet still felt rejected anyway. Not that it matters. It’s one of those fleeting moments that made me laugh. Like when you put on a pair of skinny jeans 2 ½ months after your wedding to find out they fit a lot skinnier than you remembered. Ha ha h-, ahem.
I guess I have a lot more lessons to learn on this marital quest. My parent’s journey is a good one from which to learn! Yet I fear asking them for advice. My dad usually smiles and jokingly says, “Do whatever she tells you to do!” My mom doesn’t smile and unjokingly says, “Just don’t get married.” But because of my mother’s aforementioned inability to properly emote, I take it with a grain of salt. I must commend the couple that forced me to have a sense of humor in order to survive my family dynamic. They made it. They’re still making it. However, most of the time, it was a matter of making a choice to make it, and that’s a powerful realization… baby. Uh huh, uh huh.
