Anniversario

Child bride

Saturday was our 22nd anniversary and when we told our acquaintances here about the happy occasion we got some strange looks. There is general disbelief that we have been married that long for two reasons: one most people think we are five or ten years younger than we are and then they don’t believe we were actually married that young. You see, in Italy getting married in your early twenties is a rarity.

I was telling my barber while he was shaving me and he had a funny look on his face and asked me how old I was, I think he thought I had again mixed up my Italian. Once he had the numbers straight he asked if it was true that I was twenty-five when we got married…”Si”. He was genuinely surprised that first of all I was that old and two that we married that young. Let’s just say Valerie is a few years younger than I, I do find some joy in telling friends she was a “child bride”.

One of our barista friends who was engaged for twenty years before being married was just as surprised by the length of our marriage and our ages. This was repeated several times during the day with various looks of amazement and expressions of “auguri” during the day.

The regular response we get of disbelief to how old we are often makes me wonder: is it the genes, have we lived that well or is it that I still act like a kid? Hopefully it is a combination of all of the preceding.

Here’s to another 22 plus more years with mia bella moglie!