Yesterday was my 26^th wedding anniversary.  I posted it to Facebook and was overwhelmed by 33 "thumbs up" and 24 comments.  It was fabulous to be showered with well wishes from my community.

A funny thing happened to me a few months ago that drove home the fact that I had been married a long time. Last winter I had to take my wedding ring into the shop for a repair.  I wear my ring 24/7.  After I left my ring at the jewelers, I glanced at my hand.  I had a dent!  Nine of my pudgy fingers look like breakfast pork links.  But in the 10^th one, in the spot where my ring sits, there is an indentation that does not fill out when I take my ring off.  My finger has grown around the ring; it has permanently changed my hand.  

And it's permanently changed me.  Mark Twain said it best, "Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths.  No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century."