63 Years Ago Today

  

63 years ago today, I was wearing my favorite yellow dress and running around Reading MA trying to elope without my mother finding out.

My soon-to-be husband had driven from the Naval School of Music in D.C. His best man Steve and my bridesman Kenny had gone to the Methodist Church across the common to find the minister. I was trying to convince the town clerk not to notify my mother and he agreed not to do it immediately, but he would do it.

I didn't plan what I'd be doing 30, 40 or 50 years to celebrate. I was more worried about facing my mother and where my husband would be sent on his next assignment. 

I was also worried about how my mother would take it. Not well. She tried to have the marriage annulled, but since we were living in Germany, she was unsuccessful.

The marriage lasted a not-awful seven years. It produced my fantastic daughter, whom we co-parented well together until she was 18. Our divorce allowed us both to live the lives we were meant to live, very different from what they would have been had we stayed together. 

High school crushes and innocence are not necessarily the best recipe for a good marriage. 

Even if that marriage failed, like Edith Piaf, Non, Je ne regrette rien.