May 31, 1975

All morning so hot, but when we stood there with our bare feet in the Atlantic, we hesitated in the chill. Determined, we made our way into the water. At some point, you just have to dive. Summer was here, and I was back in the water where I belong.

Today my parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. 35 years of being married to each other, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. It snowed on their wedding day, and my grandmother scrambled to find blankets for everyone at the outdoor luncheon, which she served on those pink flower plates she'd brought back from Italy and which I packed in my boxes last year. She fought so hard for anything to resemble tradition at that wedding. My mother wore a blue dress and I never forgave her for cutting it up and turning it into a blouse and skirt. More useful, she said.

35 years, for better or for worse. I remember kitchen table fights that ended in yogurt against the window that faced the forest. I remember my mother storming out and driving off, and I wasn't sure if she would come back. She'd run out in her clogs and she always said you shouldn't drive with those, they were a hazard. I was terrified. I remember our best friends' parents down the street getting divorced, and I asked anxiously if mine would do the same. Fifteen years later I thought perhaps it would be better if they did.

He never helps with the cleaning, she never dares dream big. She never gets nostalgic, he can't throw anything away. But he gave her the world and she is his pillar of strength. When they cannot sleep in the same bed together, they miss each other. They have been together longer than they have been with anyone else, their own parents included. Through careers, through children, through death threats and loss. They have stuck by each other, in sickness and in health, for better, and for worse.

I stayed in the water a little longer, and it wasn't cold anymore. I considered going up, getting out. Just one more dive. I turned around and swam out to sea. I guess that's the thing. Just one more moment, you think, and you can't get enough. Just one more moment, and you've built a whole life.