On Aging As A Couple

by Amy Ruhlin

My husband comes home from work with his backpack slung over his shoulder, the same way he carried a similar pack during our college years. Back then, the weight of the pack was a few textbooks and a pack of cigarettes, but now it's his fancy laptop and files of responsibilities. He slides the strap down his arm, eases the pack onto the kitchen chair and unzips the outer pocket, the space where, in our younger days, he stashed Marlboro Lights. He takes out his pain meds, his only relief from the arthritis that has settled into his spine. I can see the stress of his workday rooted in the reddened rims of his eyes and the years of devotion as a husband and father carried in his gait. He's a good man, the best I've ever known, and his love has been strong and wide, always, in our 30 years together. He's solid, his feet planted firmly on the ground, his Irish heritage often on display with his playful mischief. It's been only recently that I've faced the fact that like me, he is vulnerable to time. Like me, he is a little tattered and worn. And like me, he is growing older.

I've been so preoccupied with my own issues of aging--perimenopause, kids flying the nest, fine lines and sagging breasts, that I've kept my husband safely frozen in time. In my mind, he's always been the 21-year-old boy that I first laid eyes on in a hotel lobby in 1981. He was working as a bellman and he wore a ridiculous, black bellhop uniform that made him look like a leprechaun on his way to a funeral. But still, I fell for him, hard, and have loved him ever since.  It's not like I love his battered 53-year-old self less than I loved his fresh 21-year-old self. In fact, the reverse is true, and therein lies the problem.

I know we are the lucky ones. We have each other to help bear the burden of aging, to soften the blows of time. He’s always been my safe space to land, the one whom I trust completely and who can make me laugh at anything, most importantly, at myself.  But selfishly, I don't want him to grow old too. It’s just too damn scary and he’s too much to lose.

I’d always heard that it takes courage to truly love another and as I age alongside my husband, I'm learning how true that is. Love is a trickster. In the beginning, it’s like a fruity cocktail before the heavy meal.  It’s sweet and easy, but as you move along, it becomes richer, more textured, loaded. It’s more satisfying and substantial, and yet, you know it is getting closer to the end. But, perhaps, learning how to fully love another, despite the enormous cost, is its ultimate goal and a benefit of aging.

I ask him how his day was as he pours water into a glass and then swallows his pill. He says something to make me laugh and then he opens the back door and tells me that he needs to step out for some fresh air, but I know he is really going out to sneak that Marlboro Light he had hidden in his backpack, underneath the meds. I know that, at least for now, he’s got my back and he’ll lock up for the night, so I head upstairs for bed, feeling glad and grateful that together, we are growing older.

Life in the Empty Nest

by Amy Ruhlin

My nest has been empty for three weeks. The first night was the hardest -- the night my husband and I drove home from dropping our son, our youngest, off at college. Neither of us spoke a word in the car. Speech was too small, so we sat in silence, but I could feel us moving, together through the seismic shift.

When we got home, I sat down on the sofa and finally, I wept. My husband wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

"You did a good job," he told me. "You were a good mom."

I heard his words and the vise around my body began to loosen its grip.

Love comes to us in different forms, but when it comes to us through our children, we seem to claim ownership. Mine, we think. But the truth of it is, they are only passing through. And still, we give it our all, so it's hard to let go.

That night, my husband and I both had dreams about our son. Nightmares, actually. In my husband's dream, he sat on a beach and saw our son being attacked by sharks but he could not save him. In my dream, I sat on the floor with my son cuddled up to my side. He was small and frail and afraid as we watched a man in the room circle us with a loaded gun.

In the light of morning, I knew that our job of protecting our son was over. And despite the bad dreams, or maybe because of them, I knew that our son was safe and that he was now able to protect himself.

My husband went to work. I work from home, so I was on my own for the first full day in our new nest, a day that I had been dreading. But as I moved through it, I found my rhythm. I worked and I stretched and I piddled, but mostly, I felt grateful. I walked through the empty rooms of our house but they felt full: of love, of memories, of possibilities.

In the evening, I heard my husband's car putt-putt into our garage and I leapt up to greet him at the door. This surprised me, as I haven't done any leaping in a long time.

"Hey!" we said in unison, as he walked through the door. I felt 26 again. And I could tell that he did too.

We had a roaring good time together in our 20s, my husband and I. We married, began our careers, renovated a house and at the age of 30, had our first child. I thought those early days would last forever.

"Wanna go out for tacos and margaritas?" my husband asked me. I smiled and grabbed my purse and we got back into his car.

At the restaurant, the waitress offered each of us the 32 oz. sized margaritas and we laughed when she brought them to the table. Neither of us had had a drink in that large of a frosty mug since our early days together.

Over the next few weeks we went out for mimosa brunches, drove our boat across the entire length of the large lake near our home under the moonlight, visited a new blues club to hear a jazz harpist, had a spur-of- the-moment weekend beach getaway and sold the family car.

Our nest is different, but it is not empty. All the good stuff is still here: love and hope and joy and laughter. It feels a lot like it did in our 20's, when it was just the two of us. But this time, we know that these days will not last forever and that we are only passing through. We know that there will be more seismic shifts and how lucky we will be if we can continue to move through them together. And we know that a time that is often seen as empty, is actually the richest time of all.

A Ring for the Empty Nest

by Amy Ruhlin

I recently lost one of my favorite rings. A "mothers ring," it was called: a band of studded white gold with a small, peridot gemstone in the setting. The peridot is the birthstone for August, the month that my son was born. I wore it on my right hand every single day for the last 17 years, along with a second, identical ring, except for the aquamarine gemstone in the setting, which is the birthstone for March, the month that my daughter was born.

The rings were handmade by a jeweler in Texas when my children were very young. I cherished those bands of gold and I loved how they looked on my hand. I wore them as a celebration of my children and of motherhood. And then one day this spring, I looked down at my hand, and the peridot ring was gone. It had slipped off of my finger without me even noticing. It was a strange thing to happen after all of these years. The ring had remained snug and safe on my hand through all of the rough and tumble years of child-rearing, and then as if on cue, it quietly slipped away. For a while, I continued to wear just the one ring, my daughter's birthstone, but it didn't feel or look right without the peridot by its side.

"Maybe it's a sign," my son said to me with a grin. He knew that his old mom had been working hard at letting go. He knew that I had been preparing myself for the empty nest, which will be here in three short weeks, when he goes away to college. He understood, at least in some vague way, that I have been reclaiming parts of myself, pieces that went underground during the intense mothering years. Years when I needed to focus most of my energies on raising him and his sister; years when I had to put aside some of my own creativity, ambitions, wants and needs. I guess its called sacrifice. It's what we do for our kids and it is good. It has meaning and it takes us out of our own small selves.

I was devastated by the loss of the ring. I tracked down the jewelers in Texas and asked them if they could make me another one. I even sent them a photo of the ring that I still have, my daughter's birthstone, so that they could match the two, just like they did when my kids were small.

But then, I discovered an old ring in the back of my jewelry drawer: a band of yellow gold with a beautiful diamond-shaped garnet in the setting. The garnet is the birthstone for January, the month that I was born. My mother gave it to me when I was in my 20s, before I had children, before I was a mother. I had forgotten about it. I had even just about forgotten that the garnet is my birthstone or that I even have a birthstone.

A few days after I found the garnet my husband asked, "So, did you get in touch with the jewelers in Texas?"

"Yeah," I sighed.

He waited for me to continue, and when I didn't, he probed further. "Well, are you gonna order the mothers ring?"

"Nah, I don't think so." I told him.

I let a few minutes pass, for dramatic effect. And then I said, "I'm really liking the look of this garnet on my hand." I held my right hand out for him to see. "I think I found it for a reason. I think it's here to remind me of something. I think it is reminding me of me."

My husband is used to me talking like this, so he kindly smiled and nodded his head in agreement.

I plan on wearing my garnet next week when we drop our son off at college. And I will raise my ring high into the air as I wave goodbye to him. And though I know that I will feel sad, I will also know that it is now time for me. It is now time to wear my own birthstone. It is now time to celebrate my own self and to cherish these years of freedom that I will have with my husband in our empty nest.

Until, of course, it is time for a grandmothers ring.

I'm Glad My Husband Kept His Albums

by Amy Ruhlin

I met my husband in the early 1980s while we were in college. He was a DJ at the campus radio station and sometimes I would visit him during his shows. I can remember just how he looked sitting at the microphone flanked by two turntables and surrounded by four walls of albums. He had a contented smile and long sideburns and there was always a cold can of coke on the desk and a smoldering Marlboro Light in the ashtray. He'd queue up songs and speak to his listeners with knowledge and passion about the music and the musicians. He was a boy of twenty and he was clearly in his element.

Sometimes he would play songs just for me. I'd sit in my dorm room dressed in my flowing skirts and leather boots and wait for them, and when they played, I'd swoon. We were living in southern Louisiana where the culture was thick, the nights were steamy and music was everywhere. It was a gritty, dreamy place to fall in love and to consider the possibilities of a life together.

He had his own personal collection of albums. There were 800 of them, each album placed inside the album cover and then protected with a plastic sleeve. He liked to organize them by the name of the band or by the type of music and he'd dust them with a vinyl cleaner called a discwasher. I was the great love of his life but those albums were a close second.

We got married and began our journey together and the albums came with us. In our first apartment, we stored them in wooden crates on the living room floor between large wood grain speakers. But then we moved to a different state and the albums got moved to the basement. We were busy and happy with our careers and our lives and though we still loved music, it didn't take center stage as it once had.

In the years that followed, we had two children and we moved three more times. And during each move, the 800 albums were carefully loaded onto the moving truck. But then they'd get tucked away into the back of a closet while we mostly listened to lullabies and children's television theme songs and storybooks.

As the kids grew, we watched CD's and Mp3's burst onto the scene. And then my husband's albums didn't seem to matter much anymore. I didn't think much about them until I was cleaning out a closet one day.

"Why do you still have all these albums?" I asked him. "Don't you think it's time we get rid of them? They take up too much room in the closet."

"I'll build shelves for them," he said. "There's nothing like the sound of an album. They'll make a comeback one day."

He built sturdy shelves in the closet, making sure they would hold all of that weight. "They look great," I told him. But secretly, I rolled my eyes and thought he was being silly and juvenile and wondered why he couldn't just move on and get rid of the damn things.

The albums have been on the shelves and out of the way for several years. I had almost forgotten about them until I walked into our office last week and saw my husband converting them to CD's. I sat down on the sofa in my yoga pants and fuzzy socks and I watched him as he tenderly slid an album out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. I watched him pick up the same discwasher that he had 30 years ago and run it across the smooth vinyl.

And then I watched the worries and concern of a 51-year-old man melt away and in their place was a twenty-year-old boy in his element. My yoga pants felt like a long skirt and my fuzzy socks turned into kick-ass leather boots. I felt full of grit and dreams as I considered the possibilities of the second half of our life together.

"This album sounds great," I heard myself say. The sound has so much...depth. It's so much better than a CD or Mp3."

My husband gave me a contented smile and I swear I smelled a Marlboro Light burning somewhere.

My husband is right. There's nothing like the sound of an album.

I Thought We Were In This Together

by Amy Ruhlin

My husband has grown a beard. I've known him for 30 years and he has not once, not ever, tried to grow any type of facial hair at all.

Our 20-year-old daughter became concerned when she saw it. She said that surely he would shave soon; it is so unlike him to grow a beard.

And then she asked me if this could be his midlife crisis.

"Why, yes," I told her, trying to contain my excitement, "actually, I think it is."

"Well," she said, "if this is the extent of it, then that is good news."

I know that she said this with great relief, even though she said it by text, because she witnessed my own midlife adjustment. She was often in the room as the hormones shifted, the tears spilled and the mood changed.

I agreed with my daughter that her Dad's beard was benign midlife angst. But I was also secretly thrilled. For years, I had been hoping that he would exhibit some mild hysteria so that I didn't look so bad.

My husband is a rock. He is calm and patient and kind and level-headed. And although I love and appreciate these qualities, they made him seem like a saint as he sailed through midlife while I turned into Medusa.

He and I have been together for the majority of our adult lives.

We carved out our careers and moved into full adulthood together in our twenties.

We created a family and built a home together in our thirties.

We entered our forties together and after a few years, I fell apart. But he did not and it didn't seem fair. I thought we were in this together.

I began to toss and turn at night and wake up in sweat while he peacefully snored beside me.

I began to face the reality that I had to let go of my babies because somehow, they grew up.  It was not easy letting go and I struggled. And since my husband was just as involved in raising our children as I was, I assumed that he was struggling too.

"Aren't you sad that the kids aren't little anymore?" I would ask.

"Not all all," he would say. "Those were great times but now they are older and these are good times too."

I was sure he was in denial , so I found old photos of the kids when they were small and adorable and held them up close to his face.

"Look," I'd plead, "doesn't it just kill you that those days are gone?"  But he would only smile and say, "Nah, those were fun days but now we've just moved on to different days. You know, circle of life and all that stuff." He was taking it all in stride and it was maddening.

I began to count the number of grey hairs on my head and I noticed that my husband didn't have any. Not one. As I increased the number of highlights in my hair, he combed through the same thick, dark hair he's had since he was 21.

I didn't like this solo trip. But things are looking up now that we are in our fifties.

My husband has grown a beard.  A crazy, woolly, middle-aged , grey beard.

Thank you, honey. I'm so glad we are in this together.