It was a simple question: “How long have you been married?”
I turned to look at Katie, my wife of 35 years, and answered, emphatically, “Not long enough.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” the nurse smiled and beamed at my wife. Katie squeezed my hand.
I wasn’t trying to be “sweet” – I was trying for a laugh to stave off thoughts of my mortality. I was lying on a gurney, about to go into surgery, and I wasn’t totally assured that I would be waking up when it was over. “Not long enough” was, I thought, a clever way of saying that “I’m not ready to stop having anniversaries.”
Well, obviously, I did wake up, and I’ve even celebrated another anniversary since then. But the sentiment remains: I have not been married “long enough.” And I’ll feel that way all the rest of my life.
About Jesse
My name is Jesse Blatt. My first name is actually “Ramon,” but I haven’t used that name, except for official purposes, since 1970. I have a high school diploma and a PhD…nothing in between. I’ll get around to explaining that in a post sometime.
From time to time I will be posting true stories from my past, though not in any special order. I’ve been fortunate to have had a dozen or so different careers, most of them very satisfying, some fairly frustrating, and none that I wish had never happened. In my many former lives, I have been a mail clerk, radio and TV engineer, radio announcer, electronics engineer, college instructor, psychologist, research consultant, Federal employee, supervisor of research professionals, computer programmer, web designer, instructional designer, construction site handyman, and carpenter, not necessarily in that order.
Reflections on a Checkered Career 