Ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere and elsewhere in the literary universe, allow me to present to you the man of my dreams. He is shaped just right, with a strong set of arms, a nice broad chest and swagger he has perfected all on his own. He walks the walk and talks the talk and smokes cigars like a man’s man. My sugar likes his whiskey and his rum, and he can also cook me up some three-course meals that make my tongue writhe in bliss. He’s solid on his feet and leaps like a cat after our 4-year-old when he grabs for the wine glass. He can nail stuff, saw stuff, fix a broken pipe or a faulty pump and knows when the roof needs repairing. He struts to the mailbox in his robe and Jammie pants to fetch his Social Security check in a way that makes you think he’s doing it just specifically to make you perspire with desire, and everything he’s learned in fifty years of knowing women has made him an absolute master of his craft.

Lucky me.

Friends, it ain’t nothing but a number. There are, of course, a few realities of being older that you just can’t get around. Years wear on a body, even a gently handled one—things ache, sleep becomes more elusive, and sometimes you need some medical help to perfect what used to be naturally harmonized like blood pressure or cholesterol. But guess what? Aside from an achy knee and back and a pill a day each for cholesterol and reflux, my man can duke it out with any wet-eared youngster out there and hold his own.

I’m married to a man who had been on this Earth for a full 27 years before I got here, and he has a lot to tell. He’s been around the block more than once, and worked several careers before retiring into a full-time job as Dad. Is this all out of the norm? Yep. Do we get the “you and your Dad” or “what a cute grandson” comments on an occasional basis? Yep. Does it matter one little bit? Nope. Allow me to squelch a few more fallacies for you:

1. It’s a “gold-digger” thing on my end. OK, on the occasional basis you see relationships that fairly drip Sugar Daddy, sure, but that’s not necessarily an age thing—just as many young people use other young people for money. In my case, with a retired Silver Fox and an alimony payment, most of the coin comes from me, actually.

2. It’s a “Daddy thing” on my end. This one’s just silly. Number of wrinkles determines whether the partner in my life is a mate or replacement parent? Excellent. So, does that mean lesbians in varied-age relationships are exemplifying Mommy issues?

3. “Ew,” with reference to the hotness factor of a sexagenarian. Um, totally not. Please reread my comments on this point a couple of paragraphs ago and then nod in agreement that age-related characteristics like lessened aggression, lessened speed and increased sentimentality do not serve as detriments in this department one little bit. Throw in a few hours at the gym every week, and voila! A stud is born.

4. “But older guys can’t…” Wrong. Way wrong.

I’m going to leave you with this perspective. It’s true that there will come a day when my Silver Fox will no longer be with me, and perhaps before that he will transition into a state of true old age. It’s important to make provisions for that, and so we have. But when it came time for me to decide if I wanted to sign on for the ride, I did so with no hesitation, for how does any of us know what our partnerships have in store in years to come? My love and I have been together for ten years, a marvelous, wonderful stretch with, God willing, no end in sight. This is the best that any couple, anywhere, of any size, shape or temporal construction can hope for. And we are gonna continue to rock it.

—————————————————-

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons