Bright Star

Today is my first day of blogging, so please bear with me until I get all of the wrinkles worked out.
My husband and I have been married for 0ver 50 years. We have known each other since we were in grade school (5th grade) we were about 10 yrs old. It definitely was not love at first sight, but we belonged to the same church, and attended CYO together. Lets say we had a comfortable familiarity with each other. He seemed like a nice guy, although a little nerdish, he appeared to be kind of a loner really. Actually, it turns out that he wasn't a loner by choice, he lived on a farm and was expected to be home right after school to work. He was not allowed to join any activities, because he had to work. If he did stay after school for something, he had to walk the 5 miles home, so that would discourage anyone pretty quickly. On the other hand, I was anything but nerdish. I was always always trying to do extra credit or some such thing to redeem myself with my teachers. I belonged to the "in" crowd. My friends parents were professionals, a teacher, a physician. More refined people than I was accustomed to being around. In retrospect I really do not know why they "let me in." However, I will always be grateful that they did. Maybe they liked me because I was a comedian, perhaps it was that I engaged in some "risky" behavior, for example, I talked back to the teachers, and I smoked cigarettes. By today's standards inconsequential, or it could have been because I was an excellent athlete. Whenever the teams were chosen in gym class, I was always one of the first picked because of my athletic ability. It was one of the areas that I felt confident about myself.
I lived on a farm also as Lee did, and I worked like a man. My father liked to brag to others about how much work his daughter could accomplish. He would make a list of duties for me every day, and I would never have dared NOT to perform every single task. The punishment would not have been worth it. Therefore, my focus was more in how many school activities I could join to delay going home. My family was seriously dysfunctional. My dad was a recovering alcoholic. He did not drink anymore, but he had a fierce temper, which did not change when he ceased to drink. We were a family of many secrets, and we all played our parts well, as we were directed by our parents. Incidents which we witnessed or experienced, really did not occur the way we thought. My mother actually received that black eye from bumping into the cupboard door, not as I had witnessed, which was that my father had punched her in the face during one of their many arguments. This is very scarey and confusing for a child, but the secrets were known and kept "under our roof." Those were "the rules."
Consequently, for me school activities were my salvation. I was a member of the band, chorus, student council, photography class, participated in tennis touraments, I had a small part in the junior play, and just basically kept myself very involved away from home.
The relationship with my husband started in April 1958. It was an exciting time for us, we were seniors in high school, and we were getting ready to go on our class trip to Wash. D.C. We were taking the train from Newark, New York, to Union Station in Washington D.C. It was a distance of approximately 500 miles. One of the class officers suggested the idea that the girls on the trip would pack the lunches for the train ride to Wash. But first the fellas in the class would have to ask a particular girl if he could carry her luggage. At first. I was not exactly happy with the guy who asked to carry my bags, little did I know that he would be my future husband.
Our first date we went to see "Bridge On the River Kwai." All I am able to remember about it is that I fell asleep. I had hardly had any sleep since we left home, actually all of us were exhausted. The girls that I roomed with, including myself, talked most of the night. I was embarassed the next day when I saw Lee, but it didn't appear to bother him that I had slept, because we spent the entire next day together. We double dated that night, and the next. We were quite inseparable. I was a little puzzled though, we had spent all those hours together, and Lee had not even tried to kiss me. But we were both quite shy, and inexperienced, and slow was fine with me. I had been on a couple blind dates where the guy was all over me, I definitely did not want that. After we had been married many years, I kidded Lee about it and told him I thought he needed a "jump start" at the beginning of our courtship!
After we returned home from our Senoir Trip we really started to get to know each other. Lee was the kindest, most caring, and most considerate guy I had ever met. The real surprise for me was that he loved me, and wanted to marry me. Many years later we talked about the early days, and Lee admitted that he had felt the same. We have both always felt very fortunate to have found each other.
The reason I give you all of this background information, is because so-o many people over the years have asked us, "what is your secret?" You seem so happy together, and, you really seem to like each other. This is all true, in fact, we are crazy about each other. I still get butterflies in my stomach when he walks up behind me and puts his arms around me. If we have been apart for some reason, I always anticipate our reuniting with great joy. We have so much fun together, and can get pretty silly, of course I am always making "wise cracks," and we are like a couple of kids at times. We really have a lot of and laughs together! An important component of our marriage is that we are still "in love" with each other. We joke about our high school labels which were bestowed upon us by our classmates, and how our relationship may be enhanced by them. Lee was voted "most studious", and "most likely to succeed". I, on the other hand was voted "class clown." It turned out to be a fantastic and winning combination for us. Our relationship was the talk of the school. The teachers were even talking about it. I was a familiar face in the Guidance Counselors office, and always in trouble. Not serious trouble, usually it was because I sassed back to the teacher. Our counselor. Mrs Young was very good to me when I was sent to her office. We mostly just talked. She would say, "Carol, you are such a nice girl, why do you do the things you do?" I had no idea why I acted as I did at that time in my life. In retrospect she probably suspected an abusive and dysfunctional family at home. She never questioned me about my home life. Things were very different then, teachers and "outsiders" were not welcomed.
Marriage is a lot of work, sacrificing, negotiating, forgiving, forgetting, supporting one another in good and not so good times. Marriage has been a journey for us, we clasped hands over 50 years ago and we have never let go, and what a wonderful trip we have had. For me personally, I felt safe and loved for the first time in my life, and I was happy.
I'll give you some more of my thoughts next time. Until then be good to each other, Brightstar