How are we going to make it for the next 50 years?
50 years from today I will be turning 85.
My hair will get brittle and grey. My eyes will fade and my hearing will go. I won’t be able to hear him sing over his guitar in the evenings. That’s assuming arthritis doesn’t overtake his hands and silences them. My own hands might become too stiff to make us a small dinner in the evening or my arms too weak to stir raisins into his favorite cookie dough.
He might grow weary of my same calling “ChAAd” from the upstairs. He’ll notice my voice getting older.
I won’t find the freshness of youth in the mirror anymore so I’ll have to search for it in the eyes of my daughters. They’ll grow too and make me a grandmother. If I’m lucky — a great-grandmother. If I can’t find the youth in my own face, my husband won’t either.
My body will move slower, my mind will plug along at increasingly deteriorating speeds and I will forget things. I will get old.
We will get old.
Will my husband still love me? Will he still sit across from me at breakfast and think of something new to say?
Yes.
Just like I’m a different woman than I was five years ago, I’m a different (wiser) friend than I was ten years ago, and I’m a different mother than I was 7 years ago, we will have a different marriage than we do today.
Any muscle that isn’t used regularly will atrophy. The same is true with love and relationships. If we continue to move forward, move upward, search for the the meaning in each other our marriage will be BETTER than it is today. It will be more sinuous, more muscular and stronger than it is when we are young.
Even if our bodies are weaker.
The brittle grey on the bathroom sink won’t be worrisome because it will be familiar and known. The fading blue eyes of my husband will be more loved than the bright blue of tonight because together we will have witnessed more life. The stiffening of my hands will be okay because they can still be held by my husband, my daughters.
We will turn our marriage over year after year, the exciting years and the boring ones in between because we’ve committed to this. We’ve committed to best-friendship for as long as we both can breathe.
And after.
Are you going to let your marriage atrophy?
I love how well you put it:
“Any muscle that isn’t used regularly will atrophy. The same is true with love and relationships.”
You are wise, my friend!
I can’t wait for your book to be out.
I love that sentence at the end: “we’ve committed to best-friendship for as long as we both can breathe.”
This is a great reminder to be proactive and to live daily in love. I will not let my marriage atrophy!!
Wow…what a great reminder. I often think of how I do not want to get old. I do not want my muscles to weaken, my reflexes to get slower. My mind to not be as sharp as it once was.
I needed this post today…to be reminded.
Honey, we are going the distance. I am in this marriage until the sun goes out or Jesus takes us home.
Love you
So cute. I feel the same way about my best friend relationship with my husband. We’ve both been broken, and it’s brought us never-ending closeness, glory to God.
Happy birthday, by the way.
is it you birthday sarah? happy birthday to a wonderful woman!
you are sweet. my birthday is next week. just been thinking about age lately, though. =)
I think my relationship has already seen the marks. Scars left behind from a life spent rushing around. Only time will see us coming together full circle. Thanks for helping me to refocus!
Beautiful and exactly how I feel about my husband…as long as we both can breathe!
Happy Birthday!
thank you! but it’s next week. =)
I love my man-we’re in it for the long haul. There has never been any other line of thinking.
I don’t know about 85 but I know about 47 and 23 tumultuous years of an “I always seem to zig when he zags” marriage.
I tried everything I could think of to increase (control?)
our emotional intimacy, connect with him the way I always dreamed it would be.
We were both strong willed, lean toward perfectionism, opinionated and terrified of vulnerability.
We experienced many of the threats to our marriage that you discuss in your blog.
We stayed. Not because of our deep spiritual maturity either–
I think we just dug our heels in because we both hate to fail.
And then one day, Sarah… we looked at each other and realized our relationship was different…and good–REALLY good!?!
Our marriage has been prayed over by many people who love us and I know that this union has been guarded and protected.
But our relationship is different because were different.
We grew up. I guess we’re late bloomers.
I’m often surprised by the tears that stream down my face these days.
Tears, just as hot as the ones I cried while I was overcome with anger for 20 years now flow from a deep gratitude that we stayed.
Great reminder!
I am 52 years old, 26, soon to be 27 years married, 22 years parenting…. Sometimes I wish I had awakened sooner.. but that’s not my story. My story has a different plot. He awakened me in my middle years to this finished work of Christ in me. He’s opened my eyes to the greatest love story ever told.. I will never be the same. It has affected everything, my life, my marriage, my parenting, my relationships. I write to tell about it. I am over halfway through my life…. I am more fulfilled than ever, not because of anything I have done…. but because I’ve come to know Him, deeply, intimately, personally. It’s changed everything.
After Christmas I will begin writing of my journey out of a religious life into grace. I hear Him calling me to it. I hope you will stop by my blog and visit, sometime.
Merry Christmas,
Julie
first, “gray hair is a crown of splendor attained by a righteous life.” and i HOPE to have LOTS of it (splendor and righteousness)!
when i look at micahel i still see the- 19 yr old boy i was madly-in-like with and dated. i see the 22 yr old young man at the end of the isle waiting for me his bride, there was no where else i wanted to be. i see a 24 year old man holding his son in a hospital room… i see a 32 yr old man sitting across from me at a dinner table on our 10th anniversary. i now see the more handsome than ever 35 year old man that loves me still, that loves me more (this is making me cry- thanks sarah!). and i for one can’t wait till he is 85, his hands will be soft, and all mine, and he will- because of all our years together become more handsome than ever, and i believe he will feel the same about me.
I love this post. It reminds me of my grandparents, now 97 and 93 and married for over 65 years! His blue eyes still look at her with love and his hands still hold her cold arthritic ones on top of the dinner table and in the car.
Wonderful post! we have been married almost 11 years and it is amazing to see how our relationship has changed and grown in those years. I can’t wait to see what our future holds!
No ma’am. Not on your life.
great heart & thots, girl!
after 39 years of being loved by your mom…i am blown away by the immense grace of the God who planned our meeting & our loving each other…
on saturday, our 39th anniversary…the only words i could find to tell her what i thot were written 2k years ago by paul in 1 corinthians 13…the message translation…
not one bit of that passage or any part of our 39 years of love-life are passive…they’re all action verbs…
loving you because Jesus & your mom loved me first,
dad
Great introduction, it really pulled me into your analogy. Everything blended very well together.
I’ve got to “exercise” with disipline so that my “muscles” will not atrophy.
Thanks Sarah.
smooches,
Larie
Beautiful
amazing and so beautifully written.. I will have to say I am sitting at my table just crying… thankful for the amazing man I have married…
what a gift we have