A “dollar bill” Silver anniversary

People told me to celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary as a big celebration. I wonder what actually we need to celebrate? 
This is actually the accumulation of years that a couple has been through together.

This is not to celebrate the love, the sweetness or the happiest moments in that marriage life.

I think it is more into celebration of the pain, the fights, the bitterness and ups and downs in life during those years. We celebrate that we could bear together

“For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer” that is one of the commitment sentence in the wedding vow

Yes … that is all about marriage… Funny that in the vow they only mention “for better, not for the best… for worse, not for the worse, for richer, not the richest, … for poorer, not for the poorest”

All make sense for me, because it is easier to promise one level higher condition than the reality itself. It is already hard for us to accept or to adjust when everything not as good as our expectation.

In the marriage life there are always these conditions:

The wishes that never come true, or the dreams that we have to forget and many things we need to give up to keep a marriage for such a long time.

After 25 years that is why it is called “Silver anniversary”, because we become harder and harder like the silver and we have some shining moments together.

I am not saying my marriage life is like in heaven. We were sad and angry, and we hurt each other but in the interval of those dramatic actions, we also smiled and laughed together, we supported each other, we were happy with our children and life.  At the end of these 25 years, we concluded that we are deserved to keep this relationship. I wish I could celebrate our Golden anniversary with a lot of things to celebrate.

I love this quote from Joe Moore:

“Marriage is like a dollar bill. You cannot spend half of it when you tear it in two. The value of one half depends upon the other.”

I hope we can always like a "dollar bill", and we never tear into two so we have the value to spend and to build our happiness, although the exchange rates of dollar might up and down like the life itself… but the dollar bill can still buy something in life.

Happy silver anniversary to my best friend and my best supporter!!
I am grateful to have you in my life.

**Lina Kartasasmita** Jakarta July 8, 2016 at 5.40PM


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