Today is my parents' 56th wedding anniversary. There are a lot of Hallmark sayings tossed about regarding long-term marriages; my parents' union -- a true through sickness and health -- is the kind held up by family values types as the dinosaur of relationships, killed off by rampant cultural narcissism.
Of course, my parents' marriage-- a living, breathing, flawed thing -- has been infinitely more complex. For me, it has always been and I suspect will always be a touchstone-- a place that I inevitably return to in order to test my own concepts and perceptions of relationships -- what I want, what I don't want, the powerplay (sometimes thrilling, sometimes devastating) between men and women, what people are willing to give up in the name of security. Where is that fine line between opening yourself to another person and closing yourself to yourself?
Perhaps, that's how we all grapple with these perplexing questions, as close witnesses to the way our parents did and didn't work things through.
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