What does “having it all” mean to you? That’s what the site is asking, and it is actually a pretty revealing query. It certainly tells more than most of these prompts. Maybe I’d care to dive into this another day, but not today, hosting site, not today.

Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. The Angel has been married to me for a quarter of a century. I’ll get all mushy at the end of this post, but something happened this morning that perfectly illustrates what a healthy marriage is, and how to get one. (I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but when I do happen to come across one, I like to pass it along to you. I don’t only want me to have an A+ 25-year marriage, I want everybody to have that. Incidentally, I am not particularly special or unique, what I’m about to write about has nothing to do with me, it is open to all of us. Also incidentally, I used to think this A+ healthy marriage had to do with finding the Angel, and that blessing had more to do with her being a unicorn rather than any principle or idea. I don’t, anymore. That unicorn has everything to do with my marriage, but she is not the only avenue for anyone to have a beautiful relationship.)

Anyway, this morning on the way to school (through some turn of circumstance, I take her to and from work nowadays), I chose to listen to an Amazon Music playlist titled Rediscover: 90’s Alternative. The first song was the classic “Wonderwall,” by Oasis. I knew she’d sing along with me once the first word of the lyrics “Today…” started up. It’s also an awesome love song – “I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now…Maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me, and after all, you’re my wonderwall.” Perfect beginning to a great day, right? Except she says, “I’m happy I’m getting out of the car.” Whaaaat???? The she explained, she doesn’t like Liam’s voice or the song or the greatest era of music, either.

We had our first date in 1998, got married in 2001, and have been together almost every day since. How could I have possibly not known this? Before this moment, it had never ever crossed my mind that anyone would not absolutely love this song. I told my son, later, that “it was wildly overplayed, think “Shake It Off” (by Taylor Swift) levels of airplay, and still, it wasn’t enough.” Everyone loves “Wonderwall.” The fact that my wife doesn’t is impossible.

So, here’s what I learned… You marry someone, you learn all about them, who they are, what they dream of and care about, where they come from, what songs they love, and then they grow and change, and you learn those things again and again and again. I am not the boy she married, and I will not be the man I am now in 10 years. She is not the same woman who sat across from me in that restaurant in 1998. We are dynamic creatures by nature, made to move and evolve. (Sometimes we forget and stagnate, but that is not our design.)

My experience has been that relationships crack and break apart when we stop paying attention, stop learning each other, when we think that we know who the other is, that there are no more surprises or amazing revelations. We get bored. But we are very wrong. The harsh truth of that is, we’re not bored with them. We’re bored with ourselves, we checked out of our own lives and never came back. We’re the boring, uninterested & uninteresting, apathetic, pathetically incurious ones.

Imagine if I believed the Angel was the college junior I met those many years ago? I would have missed countless wonderful (tiny and humongous) transformations. She looks the same, gorgeous as ever, but now she has some gray hairs and they are absolutely fantastic, adding a level of texture and interest. Imagine if I stopped looking at her so closely, so intently. Imagine if I expected her to look like a 20 year-old. I would have missed this wildly better, even more beautiful, version entirely.

After 25 years, I’m married to the Angel, but the Angel is different, new, stronger, deeper, both more open and more assured. She’s cooler than I thought, and she’s everything I knew she was. She drives me crazy – in all the good ways as well as the bad. Of course, there have been growing pains, but they are also growing joys, growing pleasures, growing wonders, and growing peace. We have discovered each other in terrific new ways, and in not so terrific ways (like the “Wonderwall” tragedy). We have loved each other, and will continue to do so, for as long as we are given.

I’ll never know why she wanted to be married to me for one day, much less 25 years, but that’s her problem, not mine. As for me, I’ll keep looking & listening closely, dreaming, learning, I’ll keep growing and moving forward, and I’ll stay forever grateful that I get to do it with her, whoever she becomes, and whatever horrible thing I might learn in the car, tomorrow.