Episode #127: Dad Is Feeling Really, Really Old These Days

It's been unusually slow this past week, with the highlights being one, finding another good morning route to walk and two, my 33rd wedding anniversary.

Yes, you've read correctly. Thirty-three years of marriage, with thirty-five years of total togetherness.

This year, we're down to simply exchanging cards (my b'day is exactly two weeks prior, so gifts were given then. I'm now either 57, 35 or 12, take your pick), and for a change of pace, or rather circumstances, we went out for dinner the day before. 

I thought for today's post, I would ruminate about my wedding anniversary as well as other things tangentially associated with it.

For starters, to prove how much I really don't get out as often, I decided to go to the nearest 99 restaurant for our anniversary dinner. No particular reason other than I had a gift card from when I'd retired back in 2020. So, with this restaurant, the strange memories came back. For starters, the last time I had visited this particular restaurant was 2015, when we took my son there for his graduation from Porter & Chester. In the proceeding 7 years, the seating arrangements changed, in that they got rid of the open seating (for all I know, this could've been done during year #1 or #2 of Covid) and the menu got a bit slimmer.

Fast forward an hour and a half, I decided to go home a different way. The end result was seeing a lot more empty businesses that went bye-bye/changed names between 2015 & 2022. Yeah, that was fun confirming how long it had been since I was in that particular area of the state.

I'm feeling old.

So I got married back in 1989, which was a fun decade. Things were cheaper, like gas being somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.499; Biden was still being a do-nothing screw-up; cigs were somewhere about $2.50 per pack; cassettes and vinyl were still a thing and compact discs hovered around the $25-$30 price point, etc. etc. etc.

I'm still feeling old, because I still had hair back then. I sometimes still miss my hair.

Anywho, during those thirty-three years, we had two children, a son in 1992 (times were still good, as grunge was exploding from the Left Coast) and eight and a half years later, a daughter in 2001 (the beginning of what would be shitty decade for everyone, but not really me personally).

At this point, I was firmly entrenched at my last employer, State of CT, first agency (State Library), and having a great time working at the library.

Let's fast forward through the '00s. A low point was being laid off in '03 and out of work for six very long months. Not too many high points beyond raising two kids and moving from my former residence to back home. By the time we entered the next decade, '11 thru '19, I was slowly progressing in my career, such as it was, working for the state. I started at the Library in '96, laid off in '03, rehired in '03 to the Attorney Generals, transferred back to the Library in '04, transferred to Corrections in '04, and transferred to my final agency in '06, DCF.

Things were going pretty decently for the family and I during that decade. Both children entered the decade on different paths, with son spending the first half of the decade trying to find himself, so to speak. He eventually did, as he eventually hooked up with his now wife, serioused up with his education and exited the decade happily employed at UPS as well as being happily married. Daughter entered the decade knocking them alive at school, dancing and skating. By the time she exited that decade, skating and dancing fell by the wayside, but continued with the schooling by heading off to college.

I'm feeling really, really old, mostly because I'm now 57 and only have hair between weekly bouts of shaving.

Going into the current decade, '20-'29, a myriad of things happened with both childrens. Son is making slow and steady progress at his job and in '22, after getting his health straightened out, will become a father this coming October, which of course makes me and the misses grandparents (57 and 60 respectively) and daughter an auntie. With daughter, the journey has been a tad crooked, but still on her personal trajectory. Her major went through more than a half dozen changes after the initial choice of social worker, and now sits as a career in the medical field. She also has found someone and they're both thick as thieves now and is loving it, while also being gainfully employed.

So, I'm feeling really, really content with my thirty-three years of happy marital bliss. Life is indeed good, and one of the modest goals is to celebrate my golden anniversary, which of course would make me 74 and the misses 77. And maybe more grandchildren. That would be a nice additive to my marital bliss.

Thanks for joining me on my trip down memory lane and I promise that we'll return to normal, well as normal as it can be, blogging program. Have a spiffy week and will talk to everyone soon.

{c} 2022 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved