Do you really want to have someone for good?
Would you stay in love forever if you could?
Do you want a friend who's always standing by
When your back's against the wall?
Pete and I were married 14 months - almost to the day - after we met. Our engagement announcement was met with some variation of "No kidding, it's about time!" from everyone we knew - parents, other relatives, friends, co-workers and everyone at our parish from the clergy down to the cleaning staff. The obligatory meeting with the Monsignor who would preside at the wedding was simpler than most. We had already prepared ourselves for our life together and there was little for him to do to guide us.
I can't help but think of our engagement with the above song. Not because it describes us but because it doesn't! Where I'm sitting, it looks like the couple are trying to think their way through their feelings and where their relationship is going. But I have to wonder, why it took so much effort?
"But now we must make a choice whether to fall in love."
"Do you really want to have someone for good?
Would you stay in love forever if you could?
Do you want a friend who's always standing by when your
back's against the wall?"
The questions and sentiments in the song are things that were no-brainers for us.
"Search your heart and then I want you to decide
Is simple love enough to keep you by my side?
Can we stay together through the thick and thin
Through troubles big and small?"
What is this, a loving approach to someone who has your heart or a challenge to cross a line in the sand??? My response to personal ultimatums consists of two words. The second word is "OFF!"
I imagine Pete and I asking these questions and laugh. It was obvious we were made for each other, like a coin being struck with two sides. The answers to all of them would be:
DUH!!!
We weren't kids, we were both over 30, we'd taken some time in life to go as far as we wanted in our education, establish careers, have fun, and get to know ourselves. In my more generous moments I think that my upheaval with music and ex-friends strengthened me for a lifetime relationship. But usually I don't like to give those individuals that much credit. ;-)
Our invitation list was one of the most complicated and all-encompassing anyone has ever seen. The entire spectrum of Christianity and Judiasm, several Muslim families, a smattering of atheists and Buddhists and one Navajo shaman. In a Roman Catholic wedding. Don't try to get me started on nationalities - it would take all day - but picking a menu for the mini UN wasn't easy! Greatest part of all was how everyone sat and talked when they were worn out from dancing. We took it as a good sign that if our wedding could bring that much peace among people so different then we had a wonderful future to look forward to.
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And so have begun the happiest years of our lives. Lots of changes. Lots of fears. Things go wrong. New friends. Losses and death. A new home in Georgia. New career for me. Most of all the most wonderful little girl you ever saw born in 2005.
My musical love was something in the past that I talked about once in a while, but not seriously. Pete and I share our collections but there's no focus on it. Concerts are merely dates, nothing important.
I'm happy with this new chapter. So I left some things behind. It's just life - right?
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