How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Remember the Ways

Some events in our lives bode remembering and the more important ones, celebrating.  It is an odd practice to celebrate the passing of a year since some event.  The most obvious one, of course, would be one's birthday.  What better occasion to celebrate than one's entry into this life?  Other events that may be considered somewhat memorable would be the day of graduated from kindergarten, 6th grade, and more importantly high school.  If one makes it so far the day they graduate from college becomes a very memorable event.  However, as these events are noteworthy, we don't really celebrate them each year do we?  No, there are just some events we remember and some we bring out the party and share the moment with family and friends.  

Events we usually actually celebrate would be the day we were engaged, the day we were married, the birth of our first child and subsequent children, the day we were hired for a particular life-changing job.  The list goes on.  Most importantly is the effect it has on the others involved in the event when we inadvertently forget the said event.  The most belabored one would, of course, be the annual marriage anniversary.  Just forget to honor this day, I dare you.  No amount of apologies, flowers, candy, offers for unseemly sexual favors will ever remove the fact that you forget this particular day (this goes for men and women, yes women forget this memorable day as well).  Please don't hold it against your spouse too much because it may be that they are just too busy and forgot many other things as well.  Ever forget to pay a bill?  It happens.  

So what does one do if the marriage ends in divorce?  Do we still celebrate this holiest day of our lives?  In most instances no.  We bury the memory of that day and move on, hopefully.  Truthfully it holds the memory of what could have been, should have been and would still be if that cheating #@$@$ didn't run off with that #$#&&.  Anyway, I digress.  What was I saying?  Oh yes.  This is odd actually since when someone dies we usually set aside time to reminisce about the person's life.  We remember the good, honorable things and gloss over the fact that was a miserable human being who was the reason our childhood was a wreck.  Why don't we honor our marriages in this same fashion?  As painful as it is to lose someone to death, a marriage is a completely different animal.  

A marriage is a partnership that ends when one of the other usually initiates the proceedings.  As a recently divorced (1 year, 3 months and 13 days but who's counting) individual, I can totally understand this.  However, when the anniversary of my marriage rolls around I do my best to treat it as just another day, no matter how difficult.  I do however celebrate the day my divorce was final as many others do.  It is a date of a rebirth of sorts.  A day when we put aside the disaster that was our marriage and look forward to a  better day.  I do believe it is better to not celebrate the disaster but to make that day memorable for a totally different reason.  Perhaps its the day you finally went rock climbing for the first time or some other equally risky endeavor.  Maybe you could use that day to climb Mt. Everest, go deep sea fishing, deep sea diving or God forbid, skydive.  Yes, we should change our focus from the past event that practically destroyed our lives to something we did that risked that very same life in a much more dramatic fashion.

So as we move forward in our lives, remember the good, forget the bad and try to remember to celebrate those events worth celebrating and for goodness sake do not forget the wedding anniversary.