Two very small words that mean everything to me.

I am living a fairy tale that I could never have imagined for myself. 

Reader:  Don’t believe that the possibility of romantic love has a time limit.  No one is too old for love! Don’t accept that a woman has a ‘best by date.’  If you are single, hold onto hope, no one is too old for love!

This blog, was supposed to be about my art-making journey but my life took a different turn. Before my husband passed seven years ago from dementia, writing blog posts had become a way to process what was happening as my husband slowly disappeared into a nearly unrecognizable person without speech and little movement. 

During the seven years that I was his sole caregiver,  I feared that I would disappear too, drowning in a pool of stress-activated despair. With professional help, I kept my head turned toward the hope that my life would endure. I attempted to convince myself that, even in my 70s, I was not too old for romantic love.

I had tried online dating, but my experiences revealed that men would easily climb into an attractive woman’s bed.  Also,  there was a rigid adherence to the chronological age barrier:  for many men’s consideration, a woman must be at least several years younger.  Perhaps this is the remnant of a cultural fantasy of what older couples should look like,  a version of the trophy wife, or maybe as a measure of man’s virility.

Although my recent photographs received a lot of attention as well as a brief profile statement,  when I received offers for casual sex, I wondered:  “Do I leave by the back door?”  I was rejected as a suitable partner only because of my chronological age. 

Even without a mate,  my newly single widowed life felt nearly complete with friends, social groups, travel, intellectual and creative pursuits. I thought that my life would be meaningful in other ways and accepted that my time for romance had passed.  But this thinking about romance proved to be all wrong.

By chance, November 1st, 2024, at the local lifelong learning senior center, the first annual Octoberfest party, I met the most wonderful man, a soft-spoken gentleman with a warm smile. He  introduced himself, and during our encounter, made sure that I could read his email address, “with an underscore, not a hyphen.” 

“With you,”  he writes to connect – I had never heard those simple, beautiful words before.

After every date, I always felt that the time spent together was too short and I was leaving to spend three months in Honolulu, Hawaii where it’s 70-80 degrees every day. A mutual friend encouraged him to accept my invitation to accompany me on an adventure! And he did! 

I write this to inspire you  to see  with new eyes and take a risk, not knowing how it will turn out.

For the past two years, I have tried to find words to begin again, writing to you.  Next month I will celebrate a ‘big’ birthday, as I turn eighty years old. This is not surprising since many relatives have lived past ninety, it’s a good gene pool.  I believe that good health is earned. As I write this, I have no aches and pains, take no medicine, only vitamins.  This is remarkable. I know this will change. I try to prepare myself with good habits.

Most days, I work at exercising, meditating, and preparing healthy meals, consistency counts but in our culture, it is so easy to be distracted with news, streaming entertainment and social posts accessible at any time, always updating.

I have worked hard with professional resources to move forward and today, everyday, is a gift, I am at peace. And at times, even happy, usually with a paint brush or crayon in my hand.

I have had to resurrect myself into what feels like, a new life many times. It was that way when I moved at 33, from New York to Los Angeles, and 22 years later, from LA to Virginia. When I fell in love at 58, married and was widowed five years ago, grief was a powerful motivator.  I could not imagine having a different life, when it so abruptly ended in 2019. And then Covid.

I have a lot to share because my perspective is different, I am challenged, aging without a partner or family, but I have strong life skills in my tool kit and perseverance. I hope to write about my experiences pursuing a meaningful life now, no matter the depth of media chaos around me.  I hope that we will share this journey together.   

Today in Diane Zinna’s Grief Writing Workshop, we talked about all kinds of fireworks and our prompt was to share a variety of “explosion – excitement, emotion, or awareness” going from one to the next,”like a fireworks show.”

My writing to celebrate July 4th, 2021:

I

Bark, bark, whimpers, don’t worry I say. I  hug his fluffy body tightly. I think that I am comforting him. More bark, bark, whimpers. Well, maybe not. I will try harder as each burst of white light fills the sky with crackling sound. It could be the sound of impending danger.

II

Bark, bark, howls, don’t worry I say. I will protect you, struggling to keep my grip on him. Red is the color of  the sky. No, it’s blue and raining down stars in sparkling white. With each thunderous burst, my ears jangle and his body trembles. Bark, bark, howls. We can get through this together but the color of the sky is terrifying now. Are we on fire?

III

Bark, bark, roars, you want to protect me too. Now the smoky skies are filled with the rockets and bursts of magnificent color, rainbows of color. I can’t stop shaking. I am so scared. Can’t we find shelter? Is there a table we could crawl under? I think that this will be over soon but my ears are overwhelmed with blasts of sounds I don’t recognize. Are we having fun? Bark, bark, roars. Please let’s go.