Love and Marriage

34 years ago today my parents were married before the justice of the peace as my grandmother whimpered tears of sorrow as a witness. Today is April 1, their wedding anniversary, more commonly, April Fools Day. They married their Junior year in college at Penn State. He had an afro and she had a flip. Yes, ironically the marriage was laughable and they realized it was a mistake nearly immediately, but it lasted for 14 years, culminating in quite a scene in 1985, when my father married his secretary and moved around the corner from our home. He and his much younger secretary divorced in 1994. Stepmother got pregnant by her drug dealer. My father was an attorney who had just opened a thriving criminal defense practice and my mother was a prim and proper special education teacher. I was their spunky, smartmouthed, streetwise, spoiled only child.

My mom and I stayed in that home and had a very stable life. My father was very involved from around the corner. He would always come over and wash his car on Sundays and make it to all the major parent clapping events with flowers and a small gift bag containing jewelry and a poetically written card. When we had parties to celebrate my summer birthday, he was always outside on the grill flipping burgers. Last year my mother moved to an apartment around the corner from the house I grew up in and my dad moved back into the same house. Yesterday, they settled the sale and my childhood home is now back in my father's name. My parents went out yesterday and loaded themselves up on margaritas to celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary together and the settlement on the resale of their home to my father. (Divorce ignored.) Then they both took their drunk butts out on other dates with other people after that. I laughed. People always wonder why I am the way that I am with dating and love. A cynic at best a bleeding heart at worst. Perhaps we should all celebrate the anniversaries of mistakes we have learned a lifetime of lessons from. This got me to thinking about love and marriage.

Last week, I begrudgingly caught a bouquet at the wedding of a fabulous couple who truly belong together. When they called all the single women to the floor, I moved swiftly to the back of the crowd and stood with my arms folded. When the bouquet flew in the air I watched it and determined that catching it would only mock my silly love life. I watched and watched that bouquet until it nearly hit me in the face, then I lifted my hand and it fell squarely into my palm like a baseball. Women crowded around me and squealed in shrill voices. I was embarrassed. They asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. More than one of them said "Next year at this time you will be married so get ready!" When I went to the coat check with the bouquet in hand the coat check woman noticed and said you better get you boyfriend on the phone and tell him that you are coming home with that, because I caught one and was married within a year." An old woman on my way out said "A pretty lady like you, with no date?" I smiled and laughed. Two days later I checked my mailbox and found a post card from the Marriott asking me to choose their hotel for my guests on my special wedding day (a year ago I put this summer as my wedding date on knot.com when I was planning to be married, now defunct).

Today, my parents 34th wedding anniversary, I filed my taxes and as I signed and dated the paperwork I accidentally wrote the date 4/1/06 in the slot that said spouse. The tax preparer looked into my eyes and said that "every time people make that mistake I tell them that they will be married on the date that they wrote in the spouse space by this time next year." Ironic maybe. April fools day, definitely.

However I do have a date with a hot British guy (Getting his Masters in Finance at GW) that I met in Adam's Morgan on Thursday after celebrating my moot court victory. My friends were leaving me and he walked arm and arm with me down the street. When we reached the corner he kissed me on both cheeks and said, "I will be in touch because I find you fascinating and I can see you feel the same way." I said, "How do you know," and he said, "Some things you just know."

Feeling in a marriage oriented mood this morning, I called a married friend who has been married to her college sweetheart for 2.5 years. (I was their maid of honor.) She whispered to me that she was having an affair with two men during her lunch hour and was planning a divorce by next year when I could represent her. (She was serious, but we joked about it.) I laughed, snuggled down in my cozy couch with a cup of coffee, celebrating my singularity. Who knows, I might get married next year on this date, but the way things are going he'll have to drag me kicking and screaming down the aisle. Because the grass is not always greener on the other side.