Long-term Commitment

I can remember being in high school and creating my “resume” for college. All it included was the clubs and teams I was part of, my limited work experience consisting of Old Navy, yet I still looked at it and thought, “this will show how dedicated I am to things I am involved in.”  Commitment can be a relative term or experience.  Today, especially in people my age, people change careers, move often, get divorced, remarried and divorced again, all before they’re middle-aged; so when I’ve been with the same person for almost thirteen years, married for six, and working at the same place for six years it's easy to start thinking, “wow I am one committed person.”  But then your parents, annoying as they can be, go and show you that you haven't even begun to commit yet.  And that is precisely what this past weekend showed me. 

Friday afternoon we hopped in the car and cruised down to Long Island, that is until we actually reached the Island- because then we creeped. Ever so slowly. We were headed to my mom’s retirement party.   Timing left us with a parking-lot wardrobe change but we still managed to clean up nicely.  

We made our way into a beautiful party, at a beautiful place, honoring a beautiful woman that gave 21 years of service to the same elementary school.  It was amazing to see so many people come together to show their appreciation, people who have long retired and those who have only just begun their own careers. There was laughter, a few tears, and a lot of dancing-especially from the under five crowd.

But 21 years, man.  Only sixteen years for me to go to beat that.  No big deal. 

As if a career with that type of longevity isn’t enough to aspire to, today my parents celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary.  Today, what with inflation and everything-especially when the odds are stacked against you with divorce rates that's like, forever. Their relationship has never been perfect and I’m sure there have been times when they didn't like each other very much, but it was always real.  That’s what love is.  And if nothing else it taught me that you don’t just walk away from something because it can get hard sometimes.  After this last year and a half that is a lesson that wasn’t lost on me when it came to my own marriage.

So, not that it’s a competition, and I’m not at all competitive (*cough*cough*) but if I were, I'd say that the bar is set pretty high.  Hopefully, this type of commitment runs in the blood and that it will come naturally to me.  More than likely though, it takes some hard work and a crap-ton of patience-applying to both the job and the husband, of course!