Anniversary (Five Minute Friday)

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The word for Friday, August 3rd was anniversary. I thought I knew what I wanted to write about it as soon as I saw the word because we just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary on July 26th. But then it occurred to me that not all anniversaries that are remembered are to celebrate happy occasions. We remember things that happened like the death of a loved one or the dissolution of a marriage as well. Sometimes it is the date we started a job or the year we graduated from high school or college. An anniversary is merely a means of marking, in years, the time that has passed since a monumental event.

This week, my husband and I celebrated the anniversary of the day we met. We met thirty-six years ago, August 7, 1982, at the graduation party for a mutual friend. We might never have met had it not been for the closing of the high school hubby had attended and this friend having to finish her course requirements at the high school I attended. We met in summer school where we were taking both Government and Economics for four hours each morning so we wouldn’t have to spend an entire semester in each of these classes. There simply were not enough class periods in the school day to take all the academic classes I wanted to take so I often chose to take those I dreaded the most in summer school to get them over with faster.

So now when I see this friend, I always tease that it is all her fault that I met my hubby so long ago. I know it is less her fault than it was the school system’s fault for closing one high school and allowing the nerds among us to take summer school because we could. If I had not been the type to voluntarily take summer classes, I might never have met my hubby. If the guy I asked to go to the party with me hadn’t been a jerk that thought it was his duty to dance with every female at the party that day, I might never have had reason to approach the guy who I would someday marry. I might never have had the nerve to ask him to dance with me if my date were dancing with me instead of someone else. So maybe I should track down the jerk, and thank him. Maybe, it is all his fault. Maybe it is my own fault for not taking “No” for an answer when the man I would marry told me he didn’t dance, couldn’t dance. I wouldn’t let him get away with it because it was a slow song and really all you had to do was hang on a sway a little, nothing to it, right?

Whoever’s fault it was, it was that day that changed the course of my life forever. I call it our “meetaversary” and it was over 2/3 of my life ago, but it is a day I will never forget and second only our wedding anniversary in the importance and long-term impact on my life. Somedays, I look back and wonder whatever happened to the fearless and confident sixteen-year-old girl I was back then.

What are the occasions you remember or celebrate each year?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Anniversary
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

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