I’m truly amazed!!!
The time seems to go by faster and faster, and the times in which we live just get stranger and stranger. I can’t believe another year has passed.
On Saturday, August 8th, Marilyn and I celebrated 40 years of marriage. I married my soulmate, the love of my life, my best friend, and my co-conspirator in life. It was not all popsicles and rainbows. No successful marriage is. We certainly had demons to battle and dragons to slay. We fought through depression, near suicide, alcoholism, difficult parents, putting work above everything else, and my transition so late in life. And, we survived.
I missed so much by never learning how to have fun, relax, and be in the moment. But, you know what? I am trying to learn those things now, and our relationship is the strongest, closest, most loving, and yes, more fun than it has ever been. Sometimes, I cannot believe how sweet our life is now, and wonder what I did to deserve it.
The answer is simple-perseverance, a renewed faith in God, and lots and lots of mutual love, understanding, respect, and encouragement. I don’t know what else to say that hasn’t been said in the last 40 years except that we love each other more now than when we were first married, and we will continue to love each other with all our hearts and souls for all eternity. Thank you for staying by my side all of these years.
Barbara Marie Minney is a transgender woman, poet, writer, speaker, and quiet activist. She is a retired attorney and originally from West Virginia. Now based in Tallmadge, Ohio, her first collection of poetry entitled “If There’s No Heaven” was the winner of the 2020 Poetry Is Life Book Award and the Akron Beacon Journal Best Northeast Ohio Books 2020. It is available at www.poetryislifepublishig.com. Follow her at www.barbaramarieminneypoetry.com.