Creative Everyday

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.