Falling in love again at 47 and marrying for the second time at 52 was a miracle. And a bit frightening. 

But, then again, falling in love is always phenomenal and terrifying. 

We took care of each other – little inconsequential things: me, placing a water glass on his bedside table; him, refilling my coffee as I wrote in the morning. 

We touched each other often, like shorthand: I’m here. I’m here. 

I never doubted we’d spend our later years holding hands, having better sex than ever, kissing our way around the world, then... eventually... in the distant future... the way distant future... face dying together. 

But then, at 60, my husband announced he wanted to have a child with a younger woman. 

Immediately my hips widened, my breasts sagged and my wrinkles deepened. Every internalised belief and vision of what it meant to be an old, unwanted, irrelevant woman became me.

A few years earlier, I’d started talking about death. I’m not obsessed – I’m practical. Although I didn’t have a specific illness, I was aware that my life was limited – not in the sense that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow (really, how likely is that?) but in the awareness I had more past than future.

I wanted to complete our wills, fill out medical proxy forms and learn his funeral preference – burial or cremation, sweetie? Did he want all lifesaving measures or not to be resuscitated? I needed to take care of these details. So if, God forbid, I did get hit by that bus tomorrow, I wouldn’t spend my last moments alive thinking, shit, I never got around to filling out those forms.

My husband didn’t want to talk about getting old and dying. He did not want to choose between burial or cremation. He did not want to even think about it. Although everyone who has ever lived on this earth has died, it felt like a personal affront to him. I got that. I even felt that. We were both doing this damn ageing thing for the first time – like learning a new sport – and we both felt clumsy, scared and inadequate. I simply wished to take care of the paperwork and return to believing we would blissfully live the rest of our lives together.

There is no correct way to age. Some of us are overwhelmed with the grief of lost youth. Others try to exercise their way to eternal life. Some take risks, jumping out of airplanes or switching to jobs that once frightened them. Many  fill their schedules with endless doctor’s appointments. Some are despondent with regrets. 

I’d bought moisturisers, magic anti-wrinkle creams and exercise programs promising to reduce flab and fight gravity. I’d read articles suggesting clothes and hairstyles that camouflaged tell-tale signs of aging. I did brain exercises like sudoku to try to stave off forgetfulness.

My husband chose to have his first baby. 

I didn’t see that coming.

Sixty was the age of leaving the house and returning for the car keys, the age of have you seen my glasses? The age of sudden, unwanted diagnoses. Who left a marriage at this........

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