You’ve met your perfect mate. With similarities from favorite foods, movies, and books to places to live, travel adventures, physical fitness, kids and pets, you’re a matched set. Casual clothes, healthy diets, quiet evenings all work for the two of you. You both revel in your strongest similarity, resilience. There’s nothing you can’t handle. Jobs, finishing college, welcoming babies, all met with unified vigor.

Over the years your similarities mesh and grow, adding to the joy and security of your relationship. The other side of that coin is that your opposites make you stronger as well. When one of you gets upset over the mess in the house, the other has calming words and sets up a chore schedule. When “I’m sick of cooking” reverberates from the kitchen, a dinner out is planned. The lost glasses belonging to the less tidy are quickly found by the neat nick. A seemingly huge problem for the sensitive one is quickly neutralized by the logical thinker.

Segueing into retirement is an easy transition. Similarities and differences interlock. You travel together, occasionally you travel alone. One romps around with grandkids and dogs, while the other reads quietly to weary tykes. Eating out is a no brainer, just takes a little time deciding on the cuisine. Sometimes it’s a walk together, other times solitude is preferred. For years it all works seamlessly and you’re sure you can manage the aging thing with gusto. You’re a tough team. Similar and opposite, perceptive and strong, native New Yorkers, hey, what’s not to handle?

But the move into the upper senior citizen category comes with its own agenda and you haven’t been consulted. That lofty forever youthful balloon you’ve been keeping afloat for years has been replaced. Out of nowhere there’s a laundry list of new differences and similarities to interrupt your high-minded expectations. Accessories you never imagined to be part of your life show up, move in, and make themselves right at home. Pills and paraphernalia become your new normal, and while your assortment of goods and gear is different, you both begin this precarious new journey by agreeing it all stinks.

One of you has macular degeneration, cataracts, and can’t see to drive at night, so eyeglasses that get stronger by the year are introduced and cataract surgery is advised. Lousy hearing brings pricy hearing aids. Moving on, there’s the addition of a trigger finger brace, walking stick for balance and back support, a cervical pillow for nagging neck pain, and dental implants. The accumulation of paraphernalia begins.

Pills start the day for the other team member. Blood thinners to prevent clots, diuretics that decrease water and greatly increase time in the bathroom, blood pressure meds to keep those numbers in line all come before the old, uncomplicated, fondly remembered morning ritual of coffee and a bagel.

So, once the pills are swallowed and the finger brace is pulled on, you take a moment to regroup. With the unsolicited arrival of annoying health woes, it’s easy to allow each other’s opposites make you feel old, but you’re a hearty pair with years of positive likenesses under your belts. In truth, as time goes on you learn to appreciate the extra accoutrements that make it possible to live life well with the ability to see and hear, sleep and walk without pain, have vitals within normal range, exercise daily. There is gratitude for the added baggage that makes traversing the aging road a bit easier.

And then there’s that grandest of similarities to resurrect, resilience. Hearty, self-reliant, independent, and a bit ornery you snub your noses at the intrusions. Facing and embracing the different maladies and trappings that show up will continue to make you stronger.

Whatever your partnership looks like, each one involved has a responsibility to bring their best to the table. Male or female partner, close relative, old or new friend, a loyal pet (I hope you all appreciate the importance of companion critters) can share, laugh, and grow with you through the sometimes-daunting process of aging. You work together to enhance each other’s lives. You laugh together with thanks because the team will not be taken down by pills and paraphernalia.

Carole Marshall is a former columnist and feature writer for a national magazine. She’s had stories published in Chicken Soup for the Soul books and has written two novels and one fitness book. cmkstudio2@gmail.com