They can’t remember it ever being this difficult when they were young. There were no troubles with such a simple task as getting out of bed. Now their bodies ache, and they don’t want to run. It was never like this before. It must be that I’m getting old, they think to themselves. He never thought it would be like this. When he was a young man Dave could run a mile and never take a rest, now he would be lucky to get five feet. Dave was very athletic in his youth, these days he enjoys laying around the house and watching his sports on the “tube”. He remembers his days as a boy playing touch football in the field with his brothers and friends, even as a father playing catch in the yard with his sons and daughters.

He used to always be the one called on to help with the heavy lifting when a friend or family member was moving, but now his back groans with pain, like a nagging old hag. Gee, he wonders. “Why do I need my wife?” All she ever does anymore is give him a hard time. She says things like, you used to be different, you used to do all the repairs around here yourself, used to actually help when we moved in new furniture. Now you act like you don’t need to anything, like money grows on trees paying others to do the work. He retorts with, “My back doesn’t agree with that sort of thing anymore.” or “I’m not as young as I used to be,” but she won’t take that for an answer.

She used to be different as well; she wasn’t always such a harpy. These small confrontations with his wife cause Dave to recall his days as a young bachelor with great fondness, of course it was lonely at times but he enjoyed a bunch more freedoms then he does now. He remembers a time when he was younger where he could just pick up and go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He does love his wife though, he looks at his life then, and looks at his life now, and he knows he’d have it no other way. He reminisces on their wedding day. He was a mess internally but it didn’t show on the outside.

He knew what he had to do, and incidentally what he thought he had to do was what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to run away, that would only disappoint his fiancé, to back out now would only upset her, and make her cry. He didn’t want to make her cry. He was sweating profusely, his stomach was in knots, and he felt sort of fearful in a way. He trusted that everything was going to be fine. It’s much more rewarding to live one’s life for another, than to continue on alone, he began the chant in his mind. He was standing at the altar waiting to take his bride; he had never felt so nervous.