Partners

He chipped his tooth on an olive pit, and for a minute, I thought he would cry. He didn’t yell or say much; just went into the bathroom and came out, holding a tiny off-white fleck between his thumb and forefinger. Dinner was quiet. He tried to join the conversation, but spent much of the time staring into space, afraid to eat, afraid that chewing would shear off more of his crumbly tooth.

I forget that he is aging too.

We are about the same age but experience it so differently: Me, with my tweezers, face creams and hair dye; he, with more salt than pepper in his hair and full beard, not a line in his smooth skin, but a growing paunch.

Seeing extra weight on myself horrifies me. He shrugs and has another cookie. I exercise mercilessly, punishing my body for slowing down, for feeling stiff. He takes more naps.

We both forget the names of people we know, of movies we’ve recently seen; I marvel at the random memory loss; he tries to joke about it, but despairs over losing his mind.

He is not one to verbalize sadness or fear.  Mostly, he folds into himself. But chipping his tooth was more than he could bear.

No one has prepared us for this: for being neither young nor old; for the slow decline and creeping deficits that surface like daily insults.