You Spin Me Right Round

Like a record, baby, in fact.

Today - Liza reliably informs me, and I have no reason to doubt her assessment as I agree with it calendrally at least - is the one year anniversary of our engagement.

Liza would be updating this herself, but she is busy in some sort of meeting - which clearly is never an ideal situation, so it falls to me to do this. She has admonished me to "Be nice."

Really, it is an interesting issue this "anniversary" thing - firstly, even considering the time Liza was asked if she would marry me was so very shortly after midnight on the 26th it was only the 27th in the most cursory terms. And, given the fact we had been up all day and had not gone to bed (we were at a late-night function - a description which perhaps does not suit the Easter Vigil in the Roman Church as much as it should) perhaps our engagement anniversary should be yesterday?

Then again, there is the other way of looking at it - liturgically. We got engaged on Easter Sunday (definitely - that begins the moment the bell rings for Mass). So . . . there's almost another month to go.

I've never really understood this concept of anniversaries - a year is kind of an arbitary way of dividing time. Yes, it is a kind of cycle and one which is not overly arbitary - but, then again, the Earth is in a radically different point today than it was 365.25 days ago (everything moves in the universe - even the things you think don't. Ask Monty Python.)

Why should I make such a big thing of it being a year since I got engaged? Doesn't that rather reduce the "getting engaged" to a moment rather than a lifestyle? Wedding anniversaries - in celebrating them, do we perhaps fall into the trap of saying, "Well, we hung on another year!" as if the longevity of something is the benchmark of success?

Let's be fair now - if Liza and I had not been engaged for a year because we had got married, we would probably be happier than we are now.

Ultimately, I question the whole "Wooo! A year!" thing. Or even the "Oh, look - a year" thing. It seems - to me at least - to reduce the matter to a time related issue. Which it is not.

No, it's not. Things like engagements and weddings are not about length of time; they are about the lifestyle choice that they imply and impart.

A year ago, Liza and I decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Whatever that means to your tradition (and it may very well mean something very different to what it means to Liza and I) you will understand that.

Does it matter if that happened a year ago or a day ago? I think it doesn't - it was a life-choice made at a point in time and is designed to last for eternity.

I don't like the phrase "A year ago we were engaged" - neither half of it sits well.

"A year ago" is temporal - it simply places me in relation to an event. "We were engaged" . . . what, we're not anymore?

How about this - we are engaged and we are going to be married for the rest of our lives.

I think that works much better.

Why am I telling you this today? Foolish person - a year ago we got engaged, you've got to do something to celebrate that.

Darknight