Sorry folks about the delay in continuing my story. I am embarrassed to tell you that once again I proceeded to lose about 2 hrs of writing.
As I have previously stated some of this will be redundant, please bear with me I am still a novice.
To say that our marriage is or ever has been perfect would be untrue, and I believe unrealistic.In my professional life I am an Obstetrical nurse and have been practicing for 25 years. Often when patients are becoming exhausted in labor and really were not prepared for the pain of labor, I say to them "all good things take time." The same expression can be used for marriage. We experience peaks and valleys of happiness and perhaps even euphoria at times. At other times in our lives we struggle with disappointment, failure, boredom, and unhappiness. The "stuff" that makes a happy, contented, and fulfilling relationship is how we negotiate these challenges. As I have commented earlier "my husband and I held hands and have never let go." Having said this, I certainly do not want to diminish or minimize in any way the work, commitment, and investment which is necessary for a successful marriage or relationship.
Once again this may be redundant, but I will attempt to weave the story together.
My husband and I started our relationship on our senior trip. The good part is that we were already friends for several years. I already knew that he was a hardworking "farm" boy. He had also been our class treasurer for several years and proved himelf to be honest and trustworthy. Let me interject here that trust and honesty are in my opinion two of the main ingredients for a happy and successful marriage.
By the time we started "going together" (I confess that I do not know the terminology they use today!) We had both made our plans to attend our respected colleges in New York. The college I attended is approximately 300 miles from home in upstate NY near the Canadian border. Remember I have stated earlier that I wanted to be far, far away from my family. The college which my husband chose was only about one hour and 30 min. away from his home. Consequently,the first year of college we only saw each other for a few days at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Life was different then, we had no money and we did not have a car. Luckily, there were a few home town upper classmen who I could hitch a ride home with for the grand total of $2.00 each way. Wow, what a deal you reply, but remember this was 1958, almost 52 years ago. I always made sure that I had reserved a space in the car for the next trip home. We were both 17 years old at the time, the youngest in our graduating class. Both of us were raised on farms so we were accustomed to hard work and a lot of responsibility. At the end of the school year we decided that we were not going back to college. I really did not know what I wanted to do and truthfully I did not apply myself the way I should have. My husband to be by then, had no money or support from his parents. Neither one of us were encouraged by our parents because education was not valued by them. Our parents had not finished school and had to leave to help support their families between 6th and 11th grades.
I proceed with the story after one year of college. It is now July 1959 and we both found jobs working at the local canning factory for the paltry sum of $1.00/hr. As you may imagine it was not a job either one of us enjoyed. It was dirty,cold,and the floors were usually wet. Most of the employees were older woman, who actually taught me a great deal about sex. They could see that I was young and naive, and loved to see my face turn crimson red. We were planning to marry in the fall so I actually appreciated the information albeit was in the rather "raw" form much of the time. At the end of a week of very hard work I usually received a total check of approximately $35.00. Out of this my parents took $12.00 for board. This did not leave much money for anything else, but we we pooled our money together and were very happy just being together and doing simple inexpensive things.
Actually, I was hardly ever home which was my decision. I was raised in an extremely dysfunctional family. My father was a recovering alcoholic, he did not consume alcohol anymore, however he still had the alcoholic behavior. He was full of anger and rage, and physically and mentally abusive to my mother and us kids. Consequently, my parents argued freguently, they called each other every profanity known to mankind. My father would become violent and throw things or tip the kitchen table up side down while we were eating dinner. This usually happened after some small item was not on the table, like the salt shaker. Unfortunately, the argument would start to die down and my mother would refuel it with some comment about my father's past behavior with other woman. There were lots of "secrets" in my family, some which are very difficult and painful for me to discuss, even now, over fifty years later.
Sometime that summer before we were married our school counselor Francis Young called us to come to her home. I was very familiar with Mrs Young as I landed in her office many times for insubordinate behavior. She was wonderful to me, and never disciplined me. She would hug me and say "Carol, you are such a nice girl, why do you do these things?" I didn't know why at that time, I would cry and she would console me. She did a really wonderful thing for me when our junior rings arrived at school. I did not have the money to pick my ring up. At that time in 1957 the ring was the grand total of $18.00. She said, "Carol, I want you to have your ring along with your classmates. She paid for the ring and allowed me to repay her $1 or 2 dollars a week until the ring was paid for. Anyway, I am getting off the track again. Lee and I decided to go to see Mrs. Young mostly because we were curious as to why she wanted to see us. She told us that several teachers had called her to express their disappointment and disbelief that Lee was not going back to college in the fall. Lee and I proudly told her that we were planning to be married in the fall and Lee would return to school at some later date. That was probably not the most prudent thing to say at the time. She sort of spoke an octave higher than her normal tone of voice and said "you will get married and Carol will get pregant and you will never return to school!!" We replied with a very naive answer which we whole heartedly believed. Oh! that will not happen to us!!"
I must sign off for now, the content of this part of the story has been rather difficult for me to dredge up and rehash.
Remember to live each day as though it were to be your last, love life and love one another. Carol
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