I look at the man who sits beside me in the car or in the restaurant or sleeps beside me and I can hardly remember a time when he wasn’t there.  We were such babies when we met, full of fun, the same bad jokes, the rampant hormones.  All I knew was when he held my hand for the first time, it felt as though we had always held hands.

I look at this man today and yes, 40 years have passed.  He’s more handsome than ever and we have experienced many things together.  There’s such a difference between the 19 year and the 59 year old.  The wisdom, the steadfastness, with the same bad jokes that still make me laugh.  Some people might call us soulmates.  I call it a God thing.

I asked him the other day if he had ever thought about what we would look like in 40 years when we first met and he said he hadn’t.  Sure the hair has some gray and the wrinkles are pronounced, but there’s still that same twinkle in his eye, the eyes that still look like that 19 year old I met so long ago.

Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be….  I would not have believed that as a young woman, but now as an older (not old!) woman it is so very true.  There is an appreciation for this person who has seen me at my best and at my worst who still loves me.  This person I can read like a book, whose sentences I can finish, whose hand still feels the same when it hold mine.  This is real love, not the infatuation at the beginning.  Love is something that grows with time and there is the promise that the best is yet to be.

We decided to take a few days and get away from our crazy schedules, just to spend time together.  You would think after this long it wouldn’t be that big a deal but it is.  You see, as time passes you realize that at some point, one of you will be gone.  I don’t mean for this to be maudlin but it is reality.  And although I believe we will see each other again, I have seen others enough to know that one of us losing the other will be devastating.  And so, time spent doing even the most mundane things, like sitting in the same room together watching a favorite show, or having a mini-date at the grocery store or grabbing a burger before one of us has a rehearsal or performance is important.

I think it’s why we have trouble deciding what we want to do sometimes because it really doesn’t matter as long as we’re together.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone felt that way?  Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be….