Ebbs and Flows

The ebbs and flows of marriage fascinate me. You'd think, after almost 22 years of married life, that we'd settle into some sort of stasis, no more ebbing and flowing, just you know, a pond that sort of sits there, quiet, with barely a ripple on the surface--except without the algae and moldy odor that that implies. Or maybe that we would sort of drift along gently like the inner tubes in those quiet water park rides, the ones that carry you softly along a well-defined path, far from the screaming of the water slides and wave pool. But no, life keeps doing its thing and so we change and the marriage changes too. To demonstrate:

As a result of my botched foot operation two Christmases ago, I can now no longer walk very far without a certain amount of pain. Sometimes walking even just a wee bit, like the distance from the bedroom to the kitchen, poses great difficulties. Foot pain, I have discovered, makes a daily aerobics workout rather tough. Running, jogging, walking, and even doing the elliptical at the Y have all become distinctly problematic. And, because the pain slices through the ball of my foot, the exact region that presses down on the pedal of a bike, bicycling does not offer much of an option. I could swim, I suppose, that is, if I could swim as opposed to doggy paddling rather ineffectually.

Anyway, the point is, while I sit with dicey foot (and sit and sit and sit and. . . .), Keith continues to pursue his somewhat fanatical "dammit I may be about to turn 60 but that doesn't mean I have to be fat" program: vigorous basketball and tennis several times a week, supplemented by running, walking, and weight-lifting. He's never been in better shape. It's great--he's thin and hard and energetic. But it's the matter of timing. We both get home around 6 or so. He then goes off to do his sporty exercisey fitnessy stuff. I, tired and starving, pour a glass of wine and pull out a box of Triscuits. A couple hours later, he returns, all sweaty and virtuous and healthy, whereas I, by that point, well, I'm slightly (or, depending on the day, totally) looped, as well as saturated with salt.

It's not a winning combination. In the ebbs and flows of married life, it's definitely on the ebb side. One does not like feeling sloshed and salty and soft. One then tends to take one's feelings of inadequacy out on one's sweaty and virtuous husband. And then one has another glass of wine, followed by something involving saturated fat and sugar in vast quantities. And thus, in the ebb and flow of marriage, one ends up not only ebbing but in fact stuck in the noisome mud of a trash-strewn bank while scaly creatures bite and tear at one's limbs and large flying insects lay their eggs in one's eyeballs.

Maybe a return to yoga is in order.