Making the Transition by Dr. Juan Harrison

For many the early years of marriage were a bit skinny on loot, but we made up for it with physical and emotional closeness that filled the gaps.  There were laughter and giggles, often at the expense of newly wed cooking or lack of handyman skills in putting bargain furniture together.

Time goes by as children come and grow.  Days and nights pack with activities with little time to spare.  Work demands and forces pulling in forty directions tugged at family ties leaving little time for closeness or sharing communication to help shore up frayed feelings and spirits needing reassurance or revival from dormancy.

If we made it through the midlife crises and empty nest syndrome, then we found ourselves set for the golden years.  Hopefully money woes gave way to good money management as we tried our best to make every dollar count. That time we lost to those crazy middle age rat race days began to return.

Oddly enough what we envisioned as some casual, slow paced way of life morphed into sometimes busier times, only not as structured or scheduled as before.   Friends frequently repeated that they were busier than ever in retirement, often wondering how they got it all done in the working years.

What I’ve kept reminding myself about these sometimes busy retirement years is the blessing of flexibility of time that we have more control of them in our former years.  Hopefully it includes a giant helping of time with the grands.  Maybe we get to babysit for the younger ones so that they can have a well-deserved date night to talk without childhood interruptions.  Maybe it’s a day trip with the grands while mommy has a day to catch up on things at her house.

Putting together a fifty year marriage is no easy trick.  It’s probably harder than ever facing stronger forces seeking to tear unions apart.  Only the strongest wills and greatest determinations are able to build up that reserve of trust and faith in one another and hopefully in a higher power needed to undergird this human relationship.

It passes in the blink of an eye.  You think you’re 30 but you’re 70.  You see the aging of your partner in their walk or their face, not looking in the mirror at ourselves.  We wonder where the time went.  We smile once again thinking of the joy and fun of younger days.  We imagine reliving those earlier years.  Now we need to rest just thinking about the crazy hectic days. 

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