24 hours a day

How do two people live with each other and are in each other’s company nearly 24 hours a day?

Rosalie and I seem to manage really well. I mostly just say okay to whatever she wants and all is well. But wait a minute, she says that’s not true so I guess I’ll have to find another reason. (See that? I went along again.) Mostly, it’s because we get along 99% of the time. For the other 1%, I just apologize and we carry on.

The remarkable thing to me is that after nearly thirty years together, we still talk a lot and laugh all the time. We seem to find the fun side of most situations and I think that helps. We are so opposites in many ways. It must be true that opposites attract.

Going to the beach is great too, not just for the margaritas, although they do tend to loosen Rosalie’s tongue. We mostly leave our devices at home and rely on conversation. We have solved a lot of our Spanish language problems there. If something can’t be figured out we ask a waiter as they are always willing to help.

At home, we have a routine. Up in the morning, me about 6 am Rosalie a little after. It’s still dark so I go up and put the light on. We take our tea to the roof and while I check the news Rosalie likes to get on to Facebook. Once I have read the drivel on the news I also look for laughs online. We share giggles and so our day of laughter starts.

At about 9:30 it starts to get hot upstairs so we go down to the patio and Rosalie uses her 3D pen while I tinker with the 3D printer. We make a second pot of tea or coffee and hope that we have nothing serious pending that day. If we do we both groan and hope it’s for the afternoon. That way we can make yet another excuse to go to the beach afterwards.

After lunch at home but sometimes out, we wander uptown (in the car) to do a little shopping or get money from the bank.

Back at home, we go to the roof again as soon as the sun is off it, at about 5:30 – 6 o’clock. when it gets darker we decide whether to watch TV or not, lately mostly not. Sometimes the tequila comes out which produces more laughter. At about 10:30 we head to bed. The rest of the night is none of your business.

The only real break we get from each other is about once a month when Rosalie gets her nails done for a couple of hours. I usually drop her off and scoot back to the casa to spend my two hours in isolation. I don’t do anything different, I just do it alone. The funny thing is I’m always looking forward to picking her up again. Perhaps it’s because we usually go to the beach again or ‘Restaurante Rita’ on the lagoon.

Me, when I pick up Rosalie from the esthetician

Even when I take the car to the garage for repairs, Rosalie wants to come along and she sits with me patiently until the repairs are done. On the other hand, I won’t sit for two hours while she gets her nails done.

I think mostly while this works is not just the love affair but the friendship and respect for each other’s needs. I’m not good at expressing these things but whatever it is it works and we know it will keep on working.