Carried Away

Fifty-six years ago yesterday my parents got married. He saw my mother across the quad at Chapel Hill and said that he had a premonition that she was going to marry him and he never looked back. He asked and she said yes so right before classes started for their senior year they were married relieving my grandfather of one of his three daughters. A year and a half I came along.  
It is not an unusual story for their time, but as I think about my own sixteen year old daughter now I could not imagine her getting married five years from yesterday, let alone today or tomorrow. Agreeing to spend the rest of your life with someone seems like a decision you should make when you are old enough to know who you are. But then I consider my own story.
I was the ripe old maid age of thirty when Russ asked me to marry him, old enough to know myself and what I was looking for. But the difference between me and my parents is that I said yes to Russ when he asked me after ten days of dating. It is no less crazy than marrying between my junior and senior year of college. Both scenarios seem risky, but both have worked in their own ways.
I guess the moral of the story is take a risk, but once you do work to make it succeed. So Happy anniversary to my parents. I know it’s work, but living with anyone is a set of compromises. Just know that that give and take is worth it, at least this child thinks so.