The beginning of love fades as the decades wear tracks in the ruts of habits formed and habits broken, Greetings that used to be enthusiastic, like good morning light of my life, like so glad you’re home, like wiggling our eyebrows and falling in bed with sex on our minds. Ruts now, I picture them like the grey matter in my brain and all the rivulets where water does not flow, though it’s always encased in fluid. Men lose interest altogether, happens to the best of husbands. The beginning of love was kinder, more affectionate, more willing to sacrifice for each other. I know lots of married couples who sleep in separate bedrooms, key to happiness they say – to have somewhere away from the snoring. Contentment sought, contentment earned, I settle into it like the easy chair in the frontroom. One for each of us. A couch width apart, we shout across the room our impressions of what we’re watching. Yet, neither would like to watch alone. Working lives over? Not if one of you is managing the entire investment portfolio. There is no retiring from running a household, from stoking returns, from reading and correcting invoices and monitoring communications from all taxing authorities. Still, there is time to write. My second career looms large and I wonder what to beef up and what to cut down as submissions and rejections pile up. And some days, it’s a push to accomplish anything, but I always do, day in and day out – never learned to do leisure well – something we have always had in common.