This Will Tell Your Age

 I just had a flash from the past... . How many of you know what I’m talking about if I ask for a ‘slip pin’?

No Sex In This City

 How many of us that are single gals again-whether by choice or not- are content to stay alone with our dog as company? We raised our children, had dinner on the table every evening, did innumerable piles of laundry, and we had sex. Sometimes we initiated it with our partner and sometimes we just gave in so he didn’t whine so loud. Now we are retired or winding down our careers. We pop Marie Calanders in the microwave and vacuum every week or so. I once went for a month without doing even one load of laundry. Yes, my undie drawer never runs to empty.

  I admit to having days where I schlep around in pjs all day. Makeup? Hell, I can’t remember the last time I did more than apply some lipstick. My Botox and fillers are holding well. After the divorce I struggled to get my weight to above 104 but I’ve now made up with a vengeance and am now 145. 125-30 is a good weight for my 5’6” frame but I have clothes that range in size from a 2 to a 12. I never throw clothing out-it WILL be all the rage again and I’m still wearing my ‘70’s DVF and classic Chanel.

  I digress. With my basically sedentary lifestyle and love if reading do I miss having someone to share with? Yes, I do. Just not enough to do anything about it. And I don’t want to feel obligated to have sex. I actually find the thought repugnant. Is it just me and my little circle of friends who feel this way? I’ve had my RX for Premarin for many years and it does keep the hot flashes away but all the other symptoms of post menopause are there. Ive been known to state that this is Mother Nature’s way of letting us know that since we’re too old to reproduce, we no longer have those pesky basic urges. Men have a little blue pill. As women, should we have to fake feelings we no longer feel?

  Girls, I’m anxious to hear what you think.

  Soooo, when I say that life wasn’t supposed to be this way, do you understand where I’m coming from? The big question now is where do we go from here at 60+ years old? Do we gather our broken friends under the same roof of an old Victorian home? Do we pool our resources on a closed down motorcourt motel and make that a communal home? This winter of our discontent could be a proving ground. We need each other much more now that we did when we were stringing love beads and throwing peace signs.

  If anyone tells you that running a restaurant is grueling, believe them and multiply what you imagine X10. It also allows plenty of time for your partner to screw around. I knew he was having affaires but I was so exhausted and disgusted by his heavy drinking that I didn’t care. When he got wasted and fell cutting his head open I loaded him into the car and took him to the ER I used to work in. When my former husband died two years before, I was the one who had to arrange the funeral as our grown children were numb and clueless. The tacky, cheap vinyl boot ( just one) and undies in my bedroom when I arrived back home were not mine. The Craigslist women who showed up at my door looking for him or items they left behind also moonlighted at a local “lingerie shop” in their back room. At least that’s what the newspaper said when they were investigated for prostitution.

   Sooooo. This brings us to July 2016. P. was going to fly down to south Texas for a beach week with his adult and their kids. I dropped him at the airport and went to work. I was to pick him up in a few days. He never came back. He called the woman he was having an affaire with, who also happened to be my daughter, and told her he wasn’t coming back. She was standing beside me and on speakerphone. I was hand delivered eviction papers by the sheriff.

   Having change thrust upon me unexpectedly is not something I cope with easily. For someone who always considered herself a spontaneous person, I find in later years that I’m not. I liked my rut. It was safe and secure. It’s easy to commiserate with friends and say “life was not supposed to be like this. This isn’t what I planned for.” So, where do we go from here? Maybe a little backstory... .

  When I was 40 I was newly single and had only one child of 14 left at home. I decided to pick up where I had left off 26 years ago and finish the medical degree I had left hanging. I took all the entrance exams, Kleped a couple of classes and bought a new computer. My son told me I had better learn to love pizza. It was 1998. I’m working my ass off in my classes and loving it. Getting my confidence back after my husband left took some time but hey; chat rooms were huge back then as were dating sites. I had my online coffee klatch every morning but none of us were more than virtual friends. Soon the time came when a friendship formed between myself and a professor at a university two states away. He was 19 years older but that wasn’t important. It soon graduated to phone calls and finally he travelled to visit for the weekend. My son was home and even my daughter in law insisted on being there to insure my safety. The date was everything I could have hoped for. We couldn’t even stop talking long enough to read the menus at the waterfront restaurant we had chosen. White tablecloths and a wine steward... .
 
  Within a couple of semesters I had been accepted to transfer to a prestigious medical school in New Orleans and I put my house on the market while I searched for an affordable  home in New Orleans. Every weekend I went to NO house hunting and went on to Baton Rouge and spent the weekend with my professor. Finally my house sold but I still hadn’t found anything a student could afford in NO. My friend had been pushing for me to move in with him and I gave in. That 80 mile drive every morning was grueling but I did it. Who needs sleep-I was in love. In Jan. 2000 I inherited some money and that added to my day trading fund. I wasn’t rich but I was doing ok. P still made a lot more than I did and he liked to spoil me. I cooked fabulous meals and ironed his shirts. He was with me for my interview at a nearby medical school where I was to start my internship at the end of summer. In May he was diagnosed with cancer. How could I leave him alone and move to Texas? My internship never took place. Instead I literally supported him to teach his classes. The chemotherapy had paralyzed some of the muscles in his legs and he needed help walking. I changed my major and continued taking related science classes figuring that I was on campus every day so I may as well make the best of it. I finally had to graduate with 160 hours and a triple major. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up as all I was ever meant to be was my father’s daughter-a physician. I was teaching cooking classes; did I mention that I’m a really good cook? By 2012 P. Was thinking about retiring and thought it would be a good idea for us to open a bakery/restaurant with me doing the heavy lifting and him being my financial backer. Three and a half years later we opened the doors.

Back In The Good Old Days

  Remember when we were all wanting to live in a commune? We were young and idealistic. The idea that we could all share a space and the chores, look out for each other, never have to be alone and listen to the Grateful Dead all day had its appeal. Turn the clock ahead 45 years and look at our situations now. At least back then we were young and healthy.

  I’m still in contact with many of my friends from 1972 and were a sad bunch. E cared for her paralyzed mother and disabled sister until their deaths last year. Now she is a 60+ divorced woman who devoted all those years in an unpaid position because she was a good daughter. She lives alone in a rented house and inherited nothing from her mother. Social Security doesn’t allow for an extravagant lifestyle.

  D lives alone in a small house with her dog. She raised three sons who are now successful men. One son is a pharmacist, one is an orthopedic surgeon and the other I’m not sure. She did a good job as a mom but the sons have their own lives and young families. D recently had hip a replacement.

 A lives alone in the house she grew up in. She had to buy out her siblings share when their mother passed away. My son fixed her roof after a hurricane left the rain pouring in but she still has no heat or air conditioning. The backyard pool is now a fishpond. A has type 1 diabetes and although she owned a landscape business that covered a three state area, she never recovered from broken ribs several years ago.

  P lives in Seattle now rather than on the lovely island he once did. He was a musical whiz and great with woodworking tools or a welding machine. At 70+ the last I saw he was saying how he wanted a companion to share his remaining years with.

  Are you seeing a pattern here? It looks as if the world is overflowing with aging baby-boomers who are alone and lonely. We may have grey hair now and not stringing love beads but the only thing old about us is our bodies. Our minds are still stuck in the ‘60’s. THIS is the time we should be considering “getting a place together”. To hell with a help-I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up doodad hanging around our necks. We could have each other.