Hello and happy Sunday funday. [Blogged while wanting to nap.] My grandparents just celebrated their 61st anniversary. Six-one. You don’t hear that much today. You know, of people not getting divorced. And as my grandparents and I were walking out the door from our Sunday lunch outing, the following conversation took place:

“Happy anniversary, Grandpa. Sixty-one years, that’s a pretty long time. What’s your secret?”

“You can’t have all your marbles…you have to be a little crazy.” Then, after a short pause, “No, you have to be tolerant. And not get a divorce. That’s the easy way out.”

Oh, so tolerance is what our society is missing. Got it. Tolerance and patience. I mean, it makes perfect sense. As my hairstylist/therapist told me the other weekend, “My mom calls us the dishwasher generation.” (Or something — I was getting my head massaged with minty shampoo and things got fuzzy.) “Back in the day, if your dishwasher broke you fixed it. Now, you just go out and buy a new one.”

And I thought, My God this head massage feels amazing. And also, That’s a brilliant analogy. And it’s true. If something in our relationship isn’t working — we’re annoyed with each other, we can’t see eye to eye on something, someone makes a mistake, or the spark isn’t what it was — we don’t fix the broken part of our relationship with patience and tolerance, we replace it with someone else.

In a true, committed relationship, there’s no room for intolerance, impatience, or even your enormous ego. Something we tend to forget is that a little (or a lot) of humility is OK. In fact, it’s necessary.

It takes a lot of work and equal effort to make something last a lifetime. Oh, in case you’re confused why I said “lifetime,” that’s the length of time a marriage is supposed to last. Lawlz.

Happy anniversary grandma and grandpa. I hope my future husband and I lose our wrinkly-ass marbles together.