Old photo prompts questions

My friend John is a pack rat of the highest order.

There was a power outage at the office where we both worked in 1991. He lit a decorative Christmas snowman candle, which burned more than halfway down. The rest was still sitting on his desk when he changed jobs in 2002. For all I know, he's got it at home.

Between his job change and a recent move to a new house, John had a lot of cleaning out to do. He ran across some pretty remarkable stuff: copies of the short-lived St. Louis Sun, a 14-year-old bumper sticker from The Capaha Arrow and my engagement announcement from the Standard-Democrat in Sikeston.

It was cut out with pinking shears and laminated onto a card from Mercantile Bank of Sikeston. "You Made The News!" it reads.

"I meant to give this to you when it arrived," John explained last week, handing it over. "You'd already gone to another job."

Thanks to John, this is the only known hard copy of my engagement announcement. The rest of them were burned after a particularly serious pre-wedding fight. I won't name any names, but the person responsible was female and had access to a charcoal grill. That's all I'm saying.

This recently discovered engagement announcement has me completely fascinated. There we are in the spring of 1994, posing in the park across the street from my apartment in Sikeston.

The Other Half has a ton of hair. ("It's bigger than yours!" one wit at the office noted.) He's standing and I'm sitting in an effort to conceal that I'm three inches taller than he is.

I'm 24 and wearing a walking-shorts-and-jacket set. I'm feeling fat even though I'm 10 or 15 or 50 -- never mind the exact number -- pounds lighter than I am now.

Marrying The Other Half, who's 23, seems like the perfectly logical thing to do. You can see it in my confident smile. Even he looks genuinely convinced that we're two intelligent professionals heading into a life of marital bliss.

There are our life histories, summed up in three paragraphs ... daughter of ... son of ... Sikeston High graduate ... Charleston High graduate ... city reporter ... traffic coordinator ... Nov. 12 wedding planned.

Four months later, the wedding is canceled because he has to figure some things out. Five months after that, it's back on, but scaled down and set in the Common Pleas Courthouse gazebo with only a judge, a couple witnesses, a few relatives and a smattering of co-workers who walked over from the office.

Today, those people in the engagement picture are strangers to me. Those walking shorts are seven sizes too small. There's no contest on which of us has the most hair. (Thank heavens, I win that one. I wouldn't want to be fat AND balding.) And now I know those people in the picture were really a couple of uninformed kids.

Some friends of ours getting married in April asked for any advice we have. It struck me as funny, because who would ask us? We've just plodded along over the years, compiling lazy Sundays, slammed doors, romantic vacations, cheap shots, birthday roses, screamed obscenities, expensive lingerie, nights in different rooms, tearful reassurances of love.

I was looking for a greeting card for Mr. Half over the weekend. One choice had two cherries side-by-side on the cover. Inside, it read: "You. Me. It's that simple."

What? There's nothing simple about it! Relationships are incredibly complicated. It's a miracle anyone stays together.

What level of bliss is appropriate for a couple? Ninety percent of the time? Eighty? Half the time? What are most spouses having?

Who knows? But those kids in the picture were right about one thing: They love each other and belong together. And if it doesn't work out, maybe they just got older and more lazy.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.