There was a stranger in my bed last night.
Goodness, what would my husband say?
Thing is, this man looked an awful lot like the guy I married a couple of years ago.
Except for one thing.
This man was wearing — reading glasses.
I can barely get out the words.
Judge? Me? No way. I’ve been wearing those suckers for a few years now.
My husband? He’s fought it. Maybe it’s pride.
Maybe the fact he’s four years younger, didn’t want to admit he was going, you know, there.
He fought by it pulling over a candle to read the menu in a dimly lit restaurant. By occasionally, asking to borrow my reading glasses for some tedious task.
Apparently, the day came this week where he could fight no more.
Of course, being my husband, he found a way to order online for very little money and earn a zillion airline miles. He can see fine print and we’ll no doubt be flying off somewhere.
It’s helped him accept this new development.
Sadly, you get what you pay for in terms of style.
These glasses are huge and, what’s the word?
That’s right — ugly.
They look like he borrowed them from Mike Brady on one of the later episodes of “The Brady Bunch.”
So much for Husband who swore he would do without.
“You sure are wearing those new glasses a lot,” I commented to the stranger in my bed. “I thought you didn’t need them?”
“Father Time is undefeated,” he said accepting his visual fate.
And there you have it.
Why this moment that I had thought would be so satisfying, that sense of “Welcome to the Club,” is instead a tiny bit unsettling.
It’s the first time I’ve seen my husband age. It’s like when you haven’t seen a parent for a few months and notice their step or thoughts are a touch slower.
It’s like seeing all those old people on Facebook who look like the parents of the kids we grew up with, only to realize, “Holy moly! Those aren’t the parents, those ARE the people we grew up with!”
Which leads me to the stranger in my bed. He was my husband with a sprinkling of Father Time.
The discovery of this slightly older man makes this marriage thing all the more profound.
There’s this reminder in this other person. We are going to age. Shoot, we are aging. Thing is, we’re doing it together.
It’s pretty bittersweet.
Maybe you see it in your spouse, Dear Reader. In your kid, who suddenly looks older in a photograph. At your high school reunion.
Father Time, indeed, is not denied.
Our loved ones are our reminders and our comfort.
As for the whole, is it so sexy to find a stranger in my bed?
Picture the Mike Brady glasses and you’ll have the answer to that question.
My only hope — Husband doesn’t realize these baby strength glasses will only serve him a short while.
Thank goodness for Father Time. Stronger lenses and hipper frames just might be around the corner.
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