TWENTY FIVE YEARS

WOW!

Why is it that turning 25 years old does not seem to be that big of a deal? Twenty-one is big. Eighteen is big. Thirty is big. And the old 4 - 0 is huge. Not so for twenty-five.

But when talking marriage, 25 is big--not as big as 50, but big nevertheless. So here we are, my beloved and I, twenty-five years into this thing.

So far the occasion is huge. Are we taking a cruise? Are we having a party? Are we going to an expensive restaurant?

Nope. We are home. Together. Playing. Not working, per se.

Miracle of miracles, I have cleared off my schedule. My wife is taking a vacation day, and we will enjoy each other’s company. She will walk the dog. I will read the news. She will check her email. I will eat a bowl of cereal. But together we will play Scrabble (or more properly Scrabulous, because of copyright issues).

And then we will head off to a play. Nothing Broadway for us today. No Tony award winning productions on the docket. We will head off to the center of middle-class suburbia, to a place called the Plymouth Playhouse, to see a kitschy performance called “Church Basement Ladies 2: A Second Helping.” The original play has struck such a chord with this state’s Midwestern sensibilities that the theatre troupe responsible is offering up seconds for all those hungering for more. So off we go, later today. And it will be great. It will be cheesy, but cheesy is good, even if we’re not from Wisconsin. We will laugh. More specifically, we will be laughing at ourselves. And that will be good.

For it takes a lot of laughter to make it through 25 years. We’ve had to laugh at ourselves often and not take things too seriously to weather the storms of everyday life.

I’m eternally grateful to have someone by my side who will laugh with me (and at me when the occasion calls for that). When I think about laughter, my mind often jumps to the Hebrew Scriptures where the promised, long-odds fruit of an old, old man and his barren wife is a baby named laughter.

Life is odd. It often helps to laugh.

Thanks for our first 25 years of laughing together, honey. (Oh, did I tell you the one. . . )