What They Don't Tell You

I assumed from the moment I first saw him, that he and I would grow old together. I figured we’d lose our looks apace, and that affection in our hearts would supplant inspection by our eyes once we became old.

I assumed that physical attraction was like those fuel barrels that boost a rocket through the heat of the atmosphere and then are detached and are cast off to orbit the earth. Like debris. Like memories.

Why didn’t anyone tell me 28 years ago, that when the man I mustered the courage to approach and talk to at that dismal bar in that wretched little city would turn 50, I would see only the man I first saw on the night we met.

That is what no one tells you.  That your lover doesn’t age in your eyes!  When I look at him on this, his 50^th, I see exactly the same face I saw then. Why didn’t anyone tell me this amazing truth? My guess is that this truth is economically inconvenient.  If we assume that the passage of time will render us as undesirable as an old dishtowel, we will lay out cash to fight the imagined enemy.  We will be anxious about the future of our faces.

I always knew they say that love is blind, but I thought they meant to youthful details. I didn’t think I’d be blinded by the sight of my beautiful husband forever, but I am. That’s what they don’t tell you.