Of anniversaries and the like

Anniversaries are ever with us. I noted today that two people I know are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their marriage.
Bumping into one of the partners today I inevitably congratulated him. He was (as ever) diffident about what there was to be congratulated for; my comment....well surviving 50 years is achievement.... and I was seized with the rightness of this observation.
It is not so much the successes that are being celebrated , though there are some perhaps quite a few. And some difficutl stuff too!!
But rather it is the journey; and it has been long.
In a few weeks I will be having a silver anniversary, again I look back and could easily be overwhelmed by a certain sense of failure---and there has been much.
But rather it is the journey; and it has been long.
What I have achieved doesn't seem to matter so much as it did when I was younger, but rather the fact that I am still on the journey, and choose to be so, seems oddly significant and is worth celebrating.
So to my sometime golden anniversary reader (and antagonist) I reiterate my congratulations.