A quarter of a century

Twenty five years ago today, Kathryn and I stood at the alter and promised ourselves to each other. So much good has come of that – starting with our children Georgia, Amy, Ruby and Andrew. It has had many joys, mixed with hardship and plenty of struggles. Any relationship of value comes at a cost, of course, and no two people can be close over time without that proximity causing tension somewhere. Life is messy. That’s ok. I had long anticipated that Kathryn and I would have spent today and this week at Brampton Island - where we honeymooned exactly 300 moons ago. (Wow, that is a lot of moons.) Instead I’m alone watching a lightning show from the back of a boat on dry dock in Darwin. Strange. At the deepest level I know that our divorce is the product of my mistakes. That includes failings over these two and a half decades, but also failing to dig deep enough into differences that – if I had been honest with myself even at the time – I could have known before we married would end in the pain of falling apart. But youth is too often slow to study the big picture or long run. It takes a lot for red-blooded post-teens to really honestly assess such big questions, when the answers might possibly be inconvenient. But a house stands or falls on the quality of its foundation, and that’s just as true for a family and marriage. Hindsight suggests that the Good Book’s exhortation to marry “equally yoked” deserves more than a cursory glance. Ignoring that idea to avoid hard work only defers the work and risks devastating outcomes. This failure is without doubt my biggest grief in life. So here I am. Alone on the back of a dry-dock yacht on our 25th anniversary. I’m sure its a tough day for Kathryn too.