When people say, “She’s a good-looking woman,” they usually mean, “She used to be a good looking woman.” But when I say that about Margaret, I mean it. She thinks—she knows-that she‘s changed, and she has; though less to me than to anybody else. Naturally, I can’t speak for the restaurant manager. But I’d put it like this: she sees only what’s gone, I see only what‘s stayed the same. Her hair is no longer halfway down her back or pulled up in a French pleat; nowadays it is cut close to her skull and the grey is allowed to show. Those peasanty frocks she used to wear have given way to cardigans and well—cut trousers. Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still. The same eyes that were in the same head when we first met, slept together, married, honeymooned, joint-mortgaged, shopped, cooked and holidayed, loved one another and had a child together… [Julian Barnes in “The Sense of an Ending”]

What a beautiful sentiment. Its true with the advantage of age, its easy to look back and see these same things in the person I love. Thank you, Julian.