Accomplishments in this life, that don’t produce life, are extremely temporal in the big picture.
God blessed me with a sweet gorgeous woman when I was determined to stay single. She was just too awesome to pass up. 41 yrs of marriage and she’s still a doll! Still a superlative cook! Still slim and trim! And loves being a mother and grandmother! (And I think she still loves being a wife, lol)
When I had just gotten my drivers license, my mother (RIP) talked to me in private. With her lazer locked look at me, I could tell this was serious. She said, “a girl will try to get you to do things you shouldn’t do. Or you could could do things that are not respectful to a girl. Do you you understand?”
I knew exactly what she meant, and said “yes, Mom”. I knew my parents marriage was not good by that time. And that little talk stayed seared in my head as if I had been branded.
A late bloomer, by the time I turned 19, I had no trouble attracting very attractive young women. The trouble was I would draw the line (which was sometimes almost at the point of no return), and cause them to stop seeing me and move to more willing men. At 24, I met my lovely 20 yr old virgin. We got married and learned the real deal together. The best is worth the wait.
I would post pics on my home page, but I haven’t bothered to learn how. I’m very pleased with the family that God has blessed me with!
I went and got my first driver's license at 21, but only because I really, REALLY wanted to spend my off hours during my 2nd summer as a Park Ranger at Grand Teton NP in my family's canoe. But try as I might, I just couldn't picture myself standing by the side of the road with a canoe next to me, trying to hitch a ride. :-) (I went out on a limb and bought a $300 van two days before my driving test, which was in turn one day before I had to leave for another Wyoming summer.)
I went on my first date at 26 ... she dumped me and broke my heart something awful after 12-15 dates when I hadn't yet made a move on her other than nice warm hugs at the end of each date. I'd always heard my entire life that guys were all looking for sex without commitment, while the girls were all looking for the ring. WRONG! The first 8 women I dated all dumped me when they figured out I was looking for sex AFTER the wedding. Worse, these were all dedicated Christian women.
So I ended up marrying when I was almost 29, and had a marriage that consisted of 1 month of happiness, 2 months of hot hell, 3 months of cold hell, and then she filed for divorce when her thoroughly evil mother did a factory recall on the marriage. Three years later I found & married the woman I am still married to 32+ years later! The physical abuse I received in the first pseudo-marriage, the bruises and the bleeding, to say nothing of the emotional abuse, were actually blessings in the long run. Because at the worst times in my REAL marriage, I can vividly remember those old moments and turn my current anger into, "Wow! I am *so* lucky I found this one, compared to the first one! I think this one might even look upon me as a 'keeper'. :-)"
I am still gobsmacked at how amazingly short a time it took for the Cultural Engines of the 60s and 70s - the movies & the TV & the music - to transform my generation - as seen in these Before versus After song lyrics - from being ---
"This love we're contemplating is worth the pain of waiting, we'll only end up hating this child we may be creating. Love child...."
AND
"We fell asleep, our goose is cooked, our reputation's shot, wake up little Suzy..."
to instead become this:
"Why don't we do it in the road? No one will be watching us. Why don't we do it in the road?...."
AND
"Don't you think there's a place for youuuuuuu, in between the sheeeeeets?"