Growing Up

Thanks to a recently purchased box of Target brand sleeping pills, I've actually been getting some rest this week. Thanks to some recently purchased charcoal water filters for our badass Cuisinart coffee maker, my coffee has been crisp and pure this week. Thanks to the fact that it's Thursday and I'm not teaching this Saturday, the work week is almost over.

Indeed, this Saturday I'll be attending a party in celebration of my maternal grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. 60 years! That, my friends, is amazing. Pair this staggering matrimonial accomplishment with my parents' marriage of 36 years and counting, and I've got some pretty successful models for how this whole "being married forever" thing works. And you can add in my in-laws having been married for over three decades too.

If marriage longevity is passed on genetically, I'd say Gina and I are in pretty good shape. As fun as birthday and anniversary parties are, it's hard to watch your family get older. For me, these things are always accompanied by the guilty feeling that I don't fully appeciate the fact that at 28, I still have three living grandparents. The fourth, my paternal grandfather, passed on many years before I was born. So I've never really experienced losing a blood relative (knock on wood). And inevitably it leads me to think about my parents growing older. And then me growing older. And it's a bit of a slippery slope into thoughts of mortality and the like...

But why should I go down such roads when it's a beautiful fall day, I've got a good cup of coffee in my hand, and I've got a new tune kicking around my head? Indeed.

jbg