Elynne Chaplik-AleskowIt was a Sunday evening. To be exact it was July 19th, 1987. I was roaming around my apartment wondering if I should get dressed and go dancing. 
I drove to the dance club and entered. Someone asked me to dance. It was Disco Dancing. We got on the stage and let loose. The room around us was dark. Only the stage was lit. As I was dancing, the movements of the other dancers suddenly left an opening through which I saw a man sitting and smiling at me. I thought “what a nice face.” The crowd on the stage came together and he was gone from sight. Suddenly they shifted again and there he was sitting with his head tilted intently looking at me. I nodded and when the dance was over, I walked across the room and said hello to my future husband. It was one month to the day after my 42nd birthday.
In the weeks and months after we met Richard was becoming my best friend. That for me was the answer to my search. Richard became not only my lover but my dearest friend.
As a newlywed for the first time at age 43, the many perspectives awaiting me were unknowns at the time I made my decision to marry. I was terrified. A full career, social life and valued freedom kept me content and even happy. Then, that night of dancing, I met Richard. It was his first and last time in a disco. Classical music was his life.
I did not know, when I finally accepted the idea of marriage, that I was about to become a partner in an existence far beyond my present life, my dreams of loving, my hope of sharing in equality.
I have been blessed with a life partner in marriage who with ease, grace and natural inclination makes me feel my personal and professional being fits with his essence as a human, a husband, a lover, a friend.
In this time of single life complexities and egos, it is not something I take for granted that I have a relationship that fulfills my potential and sense of completeness.
That Richard and I have found and continue to develop our loving is a simple truth; that we are able to do this without the struggles and confusions of today’s woman and man is due to real luck, consistent appreciation and an intangible link between us. We are a man and a woman; we are individuals.
As husband and wife, we have become not less than we were as singles, but what we always were and more. The “more” is something I knew nothing of even in imagination. It is something that has been created by forming a oneness that retains the breadth and height of two souls and minds.
It is this love that allows for continued hope in a world that disappoints and threatens. It is this friendship that allows for communication in a world that separates rather than unites. It is this trust that allows for belief in the potential of others.
I have found the essence of love for which many of us seek. It is never too late. Marrying later in life for the first time brought an inherent appreciation of WE.
In June, Richard and I will celebrate our twenty-third wedding anniversary and a timeless love.