I don’t want a relationship, they hold you back. I
want a best friend I can sleep with and make love to, hustle with, travel with,
shop with, go out and about with and live with. I want a partner in crime, a
life partner. Someone that I can laugh with and build with. Somebody that I can
trust with my heart, my money and my life. Somebody I’m not afraid to lose
because I know they will always be there. Relationships just aren’t for me but
a partnership, I’ll take that any day.
I probably should have tried harder to stay
married. But my ex and I did not want the same things, and to add to that he
became physically abusive when he had too much to drink. I was not prepared to
stay and be the punch bag that he needed to take his frustrations out on. So I
left and got divorced. I opted to raise my son on my own after finally
realising that I was not going to get the financial support I needed from my
ex-husband after our divorce. After the divorce I was much too interested in my
own career and where it was going. I wanted to build myself up in life and give
my son the stability and financial security he needed. I was on an express
train all by myself. I did not even notice that no one else was on it, and I didn’t
care back then, although I do now. I’d like someone on that train with me, it’s not going quite as fast. It’s going at a good clip, but there’s room for
someone else on board. There never was before. The relationships I had after my
divorce were really empty one’s. No one was on board for the long haul. My
interest in finding someone for the long haul eventually dwindled. Probably
what I regret most now is that I didn’t put any time and effort into finding
someone else. Actually, in retrospect, I did try a few years ago. I did and
said something that ended the relationship, to this day I am still not quite
sure what that was, only some idea. One minute I thought I was in a relationship and the next I
was out in the cold. One day I woke up and found myself all by myself, and
there’s no one in the station wanting to get on the train anymore. I’ve just
been flying by too fast. I don’t want to end up alone one day, when I am really
old, but it could happen. I didn’t stop at enough stations and let anyone else
on board. By the time I figured that out, well, it’s probably too late to
change that now. I have raised my son, I am in pursuit of a new venture, but if
I am all alone, I’m not sure the accomplishments mean that much. Perhaps it’s
not too late for someone to get on that train with me. I guess I just have to
slow down long enough for someone to get on board. Perhaps I need to change
tactics and instead of being on the train, perhaps I should get off the train!
I just have to believe that things will turn out okay for me and in my life someday.
I ask myself what does “turning out okay” mean to me? My answer would have to
be that I just want to be happy, peaceful and have no big drama in my life.
Sharing my life with someone, IF it’s the right person, not if it isn’t. I don’t
want to do that anymore. Good health obviously, but that is kind of an old fart
answer. Mostly just being happy and loving someone and being loved by him, and
feeling good in my own skin. I also realise that life never happens on the schedule
you want, and I think I am kind of past all that now. Why would I say that you
may wonder, well it’s simple really. Let’s face it, women my age are not a high
commodity on the market. Men my age want to go out with women much younger. No
one’s looking for a forty seven year old woman, except maybe ninety-year-old
guys! The eighty-year olds are taking Viagra and also looking for twenty-five-year-olds.
That’s simple fact. I just don’t have a lot of illusions left about it. I used
to, but I don’t anymore. I used to go to psychics and they would tell me that I would meet a terrific
man. I think they just said that to give me hope. It never happened, or hasn’t
in a hell of a while. I guess I have also
realised that it is no fun in getting old. You just cannot lie to the camera
anymore, although God knows I try. I also find myself exercising a lot harder
than I used to. The vanity of it is a little embarrassing, and I think my son
thinks I’m pretty silly. It just makes me feel better if I look a little
younger. I actually don’t know why we are so obsessed with age, but we are. It’s
hard to live up to any age. I know thirty-year-old women who feel old. Someone suggested the other day that I should
perhaps look at a younger guy. Like thirty five or twenty five. Demi Moore set the trend for
that. I actually know a fifty-five-year-old woman who has a twenty-five-year
old boyfriend. She says she loves it. I would feel stupid. I have never seen a
boy that age who appealed to me. I like grown-ups, and I think that would just
make me feel older. I don’t want to sleep with a man young enough to be my
child. Besides, I want to share common life experiences, similar points of view
and concerns. What do you have in common with someone that age? That’s really
about sex, not love. I may be old fashioned, but I’d like to have both. And if
I were going to sacrifice something, it would be sex, not love. In that respect I am true to myself
and always have been. I know who I am and what I want and what I am willing to
sacrifice. I don’t think it is easy to find anyone at any age anymore. Look at
all the people in their twenties and thirties trying to find dates on the
internet. That already tells you something, that it’s not as easy to find
people as it used to be. I don’t know why, but I think it’s true. People are
better informed, more particular. They also know themselves better. Women don’t
just want a guy to pay the bills, and they are not willing to put up with
anything to get it, they want a partner. That narrows the field considerably.
There are always the guys out there who throw the balance off, dating
twenty-year-olds, which leaves the women in their early, mid and late forties,
even early fifties, with no one to go out with, except some Neanderthal who’s
watching TV and drinking beer and does not know who the hell he is or care. So
what is the answer? I don’t know what the answer is. I suspect I will probably
find the right person by accident one day. And ten to one it will be someone I
never thought it would be, or what I actually wanted. I think we have to stay
open to what comes along. I think that is the real secret to life, staying
open, interested, excited, learning about life, trying new things, meeting new
people. Whatever happens, have a good time, and if the right person turns up
while you’re doing that, terrific. If not, at least you’re having fun. I think
it’s when we start to shut down, give up, and limit our options that life
starts to be over. I don’t want that to ever happen to me. I want to keep
opening new doors till the day I die, whenever that is, whether it’s tomorrow,
or when I am ninety-nine. The day you stop opening doors, and give up on those
new opportunities, you might as well be dead. That is what I believe anyway. I will keep opening those doors until the day I find that man, my partner.
A man who can navigate the wild tangle of my mind,
past the castles it builds and around the mythical creatures it conceives, to
pursue the truth beneath my story.
A man who can kiss me both tenderly and fiercely.
Whose hands I can trust to know my every freckle and fold and to hold me as I
shudder with ecstasy or with grief. A man who can magic away all hurts with
those same lips, and teach the ultimate art of fort-building with those same
hands.
A man who anchors me.
A man that can look into my eyes and know my quiet
power but patiently wipe away my loud, impetuous tears of frustration at things
that don’t matter. Even when he knows I know better, am better.
A man who adores my flesh and bones, who sees my
heart, but doesn’t shy away from my ugliness, my realness. Who isn’t bothered
by my morning breath and in emergencies only, lets me poop while he’s in the
shower. A man who holds my hair back when I’ve had too many mojitos on our
first night out together in years. Who paints my toenails messily just to help me
feel sexy again.
A man who rides the waves of my volatile emotions
like an expert seaman through oceans of confusion, pain and self-pity. And he
knows just how to steer me calmly back towards the shore of reason and balance
every time.
A man who always sees my strength and beauty, even
when I can’t. But who will call me on my bullshit too, even when I fool
everyone else.
A man who knows that I can be marvelous and
mundane at the same time and without conflict, because he understands the magic
of the ordinary. He is the same.
A man who reads, questions, fantasises and
philosophises but also has X-box binges, leaves his underwear on the bathroom
floor and loves a good dirty joke. He is no less magical because of these
things.
A man who will debate and sometimes argue with me
way past midnight. A man who will walk through life by my side. Through
mistakes and heartbreak. Through charmed times and hard times, from holidays on
the coast to eggs on toast for dinner for the third time this week because
things are tight. Through births and death, from deepest loss to greatest
triumph and on all the ordinary days in between.
A man who will be my son’s hero, a man who ‘knows
everything about the world’, according to him. A man who will encourage him to
be curious, to find out how things work and how to improve them.
A man who loves me for all that I am. Who is by my
side not because of some vows he made or a spell I cast over him or because I
am his fairy princess but because I am “home”.
A man who understands that what we have will be
sometimes messy, sometimes difficult, sometimes complicated, not always magical
but always, always real.
"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find
the one worth suffering for." - Bob Marley
