We are careful now, walking up and down the stairs, not running. Lifting with our legs rather than our backs. Taking our calcium. We, my husband and I, wipe clean the trays in airplanes and the handles of shopping carts.

But back then, Steve, not my husband, lifted his bike into the back seat of my car. Without opening any doors, he jumped into my boat-like red Chrysler convertible. I had met him for the first time earlier that afternoon, in line at the post office in Isla Vista. He was standing in front of me.

Steve had long brown hair and twinkling brown eyes. He was mailing a Frisbee.

“To Germany,” he said. “A friend there really needs it.” The Frisbee was hot pink. The address in Germany was written on it in black marker. The stamps went directly on the Frisbee. No envelope.

Now, I put things in envelopes and register important mail. Now, I pay attention to doors. Now, I do not pick up strange men.

I was a dancer and Steve sold drugs, acid and hashish, the drugs of choice in those days. I went to anti-war rallies, marches, and peace-ins. I protested the Vietnam War. Steve was traveling, and stopped in Isla Vista, famous for the burning of the Bank of America. I studied at the University, and had attended the burning. I was tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed. I put flowers on the ground in front of riot police. I wore long skirts and my dark hair reached toward my waist. I once organized a peace-in and invited Janis Joplin to perform. And she did.

Steve and I became lovers for a few months, before he left, traveling back to Europe, or maybe it was India. I always understood that he would leave, that I would never see him again.

I met the man who would become my husband through friends, a more conventional approach to dating. A more careful approach.

Now, our drugs are medicinal.

Now, we are committed: for better, for worse, in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part. We have made adjustments and arrangements and accommodations to stay married these past forty plus years. We have twin beds pushed together to make a king, but nonetheless separate, so that we do not feel each other’s movement at night, those trips to the bathroom. We mask the sound of snoring, sometimes me, usually him, with earplugs and white noise.

Steve gave me a giant turquoise and silver ring. I loved the ring and took it off when I washed dishes. It fell, somehow, into the garbage disposal. I didn’t realize it was in there until I heard the grinding.

I went to graduate school after Steve left. I was not heartbroken, except, maybe, about the ring. Our connection had been tender and fun and temporary. I had a greater tolerance for temporary back then, for no guarantees. The future stretched before me.

Now we are careful. We are no longer agile in lovemaking, in gardening, in lifting. Our hair has silvered, and our grown children have made their own lives, traveled to Europe and India themselves. The red convertible has been replaced many times. Now we drive electric and hybrid. Now our cars have roofs.

Back then, we were angry and we were hopeful. Our anger was pointed: the Viet Nam War, big oil, the draft, riot police, and the government. We believed we could change what was wrong. We believed we knew what was wrong.

Now our assailants are ubiquitous: living both outside and inside. We fear a proliferation of terrorism and we fear a proliferation in the cells of our own bodies. We fear the erosion of the polar ice caps, the erosion of our own cartilage, the erosion of a moral compass. We fear the loss of our mental acuity, of becoming irrelevant, of appearing foolish.

We fear for the coming generations.

Steve returns in memory, his hot pink Frisbee and his easy grin, reminding me that I used to be a girl who adventured and took risks. I used to be a girl who believed in the efficacy of her protest. I used to be a girl who even my children would have liked.