Thought 27APR2009

FOREVER YOUNG
Something very strange has happened over the course of my twenty-six-year marriage. My parents have grown older. Our children are ready to leave the nest. But I have not aged. I know the years have passed because I can feel the losses. Gone are the size-twelve jeans and platform shoes. Gone is the eager face of a young girl ready to meet any challenge. But somehow, like Tinkerbell, I have been suspended in time. Because in the eyes and soul of my husband... I am still, and will always be... eighteen, as carefree and whimsical as the day we met. He still calls me his "cutie." He takes me to scary movies, where we sit in a theater filled with screaming teenagers. We hold hands and share popcorn, just as we did so many years ago. We still chase fire engines and eat at diners and listen to sixties rock and roll.

"You would look good in that" he says, pointing to a beautiful girl walking in the mall. She has blond hair flowing down the middle of her back and is wearing a tank top and short-shorts. Did I mention she's about twenty? I want to laugh out loud, but I know better. He's serious. Every July, he takes me to the county fair. On a hot summer night, we stroll across dusty fairgrounds taking in the sights and sounds. We eat corn on the cob, and he buys me tacky souvenirs. Pitchmen call out to us from booths along the midway. He throws darts at a board of balloons, trying year after year to win the giant stuffed bear. While others our age are stopping to rest on benches, we're riding the rides. Up, down and around, we're holding on tight as the creaking wheels of the roller coaster make their final loop. As the evening hours come to an end, we're at our favorite place, high on top of the Ferris wheel, sharing pink cotton candy and looking out at a sea of colorful neon lights below.

Sometimes I wonder if he realizes that I have passed four decades. That the children I bore could have children of their own. Doesn't he notice the beginning gray hairs? The lines around my eyes? Does he sense my insecurities? Hear my knees crack when I bend? I watch him... watching me... with young, playful eyes, and know that he does not. In four more decades, I often wonder where we will be. I know we'll be together, but where? In a retirement home? Living with our children? Somehow, these images do not fit. Only one picture is constant and clear. I close my eyes and look far into the future... and I see us... and old man and his cutie. I have white hair. His face is wrinkled. We are not sitting in front of a building watching the world go by. Instead we are high atop a Ferris wheel, holding hands and sharing pink cotton candy under a July moon.
By Shari Cohen - from Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul, Copyright 1999 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara De Angelis, Mark Donnelly and Chrissy Donnelly
He who refuses to obey cannot command - Kenyan Proverb