Is There Sex After 60? (Navigating Single Life After 60)

My mother would often quote my good friend’s grandfather when death would creep into someone’s conversation especially when the conversation was referring to an unexpected death or the death of a young person.  She would say, “Some sooner, all later.”   When someone miraculously escapes from a terrible fire or a horrible accident people will say that they cheated death and when someone has lived through a number of close calls that could have ended tragically we say,” He must have nine lives.”   The truth was and it is still true, you can cheat at cards and you can cheat the government and you can cheat on your spouse and you can cheat on tests and you can cheat your way to the top, however, you can try your very hardest but you can’t cheat death.  A few people actually might have nine lives.  The only problem with that is they don’t make it to ten.   There is no escaping the inevitable.   “Some sooner, all later.”

(KEEP READING IT GETS HAPPIER TOWARDS THE END, AND I MENTION SEX!)

We are all trying to make sense out of something that just doesn’t make sense.  People all over the world have been told to “batten down the hatches.”  Stay inside, don’t go to work, and don’t visit family or friends.  Restaurants and bars are all closed to patrons except a few that are open for take out or delivery.  All businesses are closed with the exception of essential businesses such as banks, drug stores, and grocery stores.  The streets are nearly deserted except for an occasional human walking their dog.  I looked out on my usual busy street from my 16th-floor apartment in the city on a Friday evening.  The street was empty except for a young man on a bicycle riding down the middle centerline of the usually jam-packed lanes.  Why have our Mayors and Governors and our President given us orders to stay inside of our homes?  It is an order to avoid the flu, not just any flu.  This is a flu that is easily transmitted and people are dying like flies.   The old and the previously ill usually are more likely to die from this illness than the younger healthier patients.  Except now we hear there are young people who have died and a few children, there are men in their ’30s and ’40s and 50’s and yes, and a huge amount of seniors have succumbed to this terrible virus.

Why does this sitting in our homes avoiding people and well actually avoiding life, waiting for time to pass seem so odd?  I think it is that we know we are actually sitting in our homes trying to avoid death or at the very least postpone it for as long as possible.  If there is a knock on the door, dare we answer, or will the Grim Reaper be waiting on the other side?

  I am grateful for the fact of death.  YES, I SAID GRATEFUL.   If you are over 60 you have lost people that you knew and loved.  Death takes the pain away.  All doctors and nurses know this secret.  Death can be a good thing.  Do you know almost 100% of doctors surveyed said that they do not want to be resuscitated?   100 %.  Think about that.  Another good thing about death is that EVERYONE HAS TO DO IT!  EVEN HORRIBLE PEOPLE!  NO ONE GETS OUT OF HERE ALIVE.  I think that is sort of comforting.  At least it is to me.

How in the world do we avoid the gloom and doom that surrounds us every day on the news listening to death toll’s surging in our country and around the world?  I know this sounds impossible but I think I know what we have to do.   We have to remember that it has always been with us.  What?  Death, death has always been with us since birth.  There is no escape so really we have to remind ourselves by FORGETTING.  YEP, JUST FORGET IT.  EVERYONE HAS GOT TO DO IT, SO JUST FORGET ABOUT IT!!

What have I been doing sitting in my apartment waiting as we all have been waiting for the inevitable???  I AM HAVING FUN!  I am reading and writing.  I am finishing my THIRD, YES, MY THIRD KNITTED PANDEMIC SRARF!!!  Does anyone out there need a scarf, with a few mistakes but they are handmade just the same???  I am listening to music and I dance and sing to the latest Michael Buble.  Frank Sinatra is still singing about flying me to the moon.  Thanks, Frank.  George Shearing is still playing the piano for me and Johnny Mathis is still telling me “What I Did for Love.” I am binge-watching great television series.  I am popping popcorn and I have some wine with my dinner and an occasional martini.   When Fred and Ginger dance before me on my TV screen, it isn’t a silver screen, but it is a nice television screen, I smile and sing and dance with them.

I am talking to my friends on the phone and I text my youngest son with ideas for his future.  Guess what?  I even have had a few erotic conversations!  It is very good for my ego, for my over 60, ego.   I am making plans FOR MY FUTURE TOO, … just in case, the flu doesn’t get me.  In other words, F_  _ K DEATH!   JUST LIVE YOUR LIFE AND ENJOY every day.  GIVE AND RECEIVE LOVE.  MAKE SOME ART, MAKE SOME MUSIC, HECK, MAKE SOME FUDGE AND MAKE A MARGARITA!  I have said it before and you DO KNOW WHAT THIS BLOG IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT, RIGHT?  SO BY ALL MEANS IF YOU ARE LIVING WITH YOUR HUSBAND OR WIFE OR LOVER… BY ALL MEANS, MAKE LOVE!

Try to stay safe, keep dancing and singing and do me a favor by staying alive to read my next post on my blog. 

Until Next Week…

HERE IS MY ADVICE ON WHAT TO DO WHILE WAITING FOR THE FLU:

1. If you haven’t done this yet, do it now. Sign up for Amazon Prime and Netflix.  They have marvelous movies and television shows old and new to watch endlessly.  I have become addicted to a few of these shows.  “Grace and Frankie”, “The Crown”, “The Kolinsky Method” to name but a few.  I suggest you hunker down with some buttered popcorn and binge watch a few of these very well written, beautifully acted, series.

2. If your library is open and if you want to take a chance of possibly running into a human being, then take a walk to your library and maybe take out a book or two and a movie or two.  My movie suggestion for the over 60 crowd, “Something’s Got To Give” and “It’s Complicated” Even if you have seen these in the past they are both worth seeing again.

3. For exercise, while sitting around your home… I have a stationary bike.  I bought it for about $250 several years ago and it sits in my office.  Ride your bike.  The gym is closed in my apartment building, as is the pool, so the bike will have to do.  I have added a few morning light exercises to do in my bedroom in the morning.  For weights, I have two dictionaries.  I hold one in each hand and lift the books.  They make great weights.

4. Bored?  You can always do a nice Spring Clean.  How about looking in your closet?  Can you toss out anything or reorganize your junk drawer?

5. READ!  I have about three shelves of books in my bookcases that I haven’t even read yet.  Get comfy and fluff a few pillows to lean against and start reading.

6. We might be trapped in our homes for possibly weeks or longer.  I bought myself a set of colored pencils and crayons.  I already had the paper.  I am going to create a few masterpieces while whiling away the hours.

7. Since I write a blog I decided to do some more writing.  I have a few ideas for a book and a play.  I decided to take my ideas and put them to paper.  Maybe write yourself a poem?

8. This particular Pandemic has really hit my particular business, therefore I will use my computer to see if our very reliable government will step up and help me with a loan to keep my business afloat.  See if you might qualify for a loan.

9. Stay in touch with your friends and family by phone, email, and Facebook.  It is good to keep in touch even if touching is forbidden.

10. VIRTUAL SEX! Here is the most controversial of all of my recommendations.  WHY NOT?   Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or two or three in this country or somewhere across the ocean that is interested in you?  Well then, how about some erotic conversations?  Frankly, this is the cleanest, safest way to go when adding sex to a relationship.  No pesky sexual diseases to worry about, no viruses to catch.  Heck, this is pretty safe, any way you look at it.  What can make a pandemic fun and interesting?   Sex, of course.  The same thing goes for happily married couples.  If you are both hunkered down in your home and feeling fine, WELL THEN???  How about some over 60 sex?  It sounds like a very good way to go anyway.

Until We Meet Again …  

EPILOGUE

WELL, WELL, WELL, here we all are sitting in our houses, condos, and apartments hiding out and waiting it out before we are allowed to go back and enter the world.  If you are over 60 and reading this blog that means that you are a baby boomer.  Our parents probably fought or worked through or lived through WWII and by now most people from that generation are considered to be “the greatest generation.”  I totally 100% agree with this sentiment.  They were a great generation of men and women, however, let us not diminish the incredible changes, the ups and down’s that our own generation has had to adapt to in our lives so far.  I have another name for our generation.  I call us “The Flexible Generation.”  We have had to become very flexible.   We arrived sometime after WWII.  President Truman dropped not one but two nuclear weapons on Japan to end the war.  Then some of our parents went on to Korea to fight another war.  Some fathers went back to work or started their own businesses.  Most of our dads went to work every day while our mother’s stayed home to raise us and they were called housewives or homemakers.  Our generation took classes in high school to teach us how to cook and sew and make ashtrays so that we would grow into becoming good wives.  Boys often took shop to learn how to make tables and chairs and they learned how to fix a car.   If a woman wanted to work she learned how to type or she became a teacher or a nurse. That was about it.

EVERYTHING CHANGED AND CHANGED AND CHANGED AND CHANGED SOME MORE.   I blushed and was shy to be kissed by a boy in high school.  We went from that to the sexual revolution, sex, drugs, and rock & roll.  We went from watching Lassie to watching man land on the moon.  Some of our heroes were Marin Luther King and President Kennedy and they were assassinated.   Women went from housewives to Women’s Lib.  Now there are more women in law school than men and more women in medical school than men.  Gay men and women went from hiding in the closet to come out of the closet wearing the other gender’s clothes.

And now folks, WE HAVE THE CORONAVIRUS and now WE ARE THE OLD FOLKS THAT CAN CATCH THIS VIRUS AND POSSIBLY DIE FROM IT! 

GUESS WHAT???  WE AREN’T AFRAID!!  Are you kidding?  Just look at what we have been through so far.   Most of us have lost our parents, some of us have lost siblings, partners, husbands, and wives, some of us have lost money, businesses, dear friends, lovers, and some have even lost their children.  Flu, Viruses, Death, Hells Bells, is a mere epidemic going to scare us???  NO!!!!  Some of us have faced death before, some more than once!

What are we going to do about it??  This is what we do.  This is why we made it to being over 60 in the first place.  Most of us are careful, thoughtful and well, pretty smart.  We stocked up on essentials, two weeks worth.  We keep as sanitized as possible and we continue to enjoy life.  WE ARE THE FLEXIBLE GENERATION. 

  As for me, I got my hair cut and my nails done before they closed the salons.  Heck, I know what is really important in life and that is having a cute hairstyle and pretty nails and toes.  If I am going to go to the “great beyond” I am going with a nice cut and “bronze peach” colored nails.  Make sure you have some wine delivered and watch a good movie tonight.

Stay safe, stay calm, stay cheerful and wash your hands!

It has become a habit that I never would have imagined that could happen to me eleven years ago when my son connected me to my very own Facebook page.  For the first few years after entering the cyber world of Facebook, I just didn’t get it.  What was all the fuss about? Every once in awhile I would look in on it to see what all of the hoopla was about.  “Boring”, I thought to myself every time I glanced at my page.  Then slowly it started to happen.

A few friends from my childhood contacted me and asked to be “Friends on Facebook”  

Wow, I really enjoyed catching up with old friends.  I got to see parts of their lives.  It is so incredible to see photos of friends you haven’t seen in 30, 40, and 50 years or more.  One minute you are friends and 14 years old and ZAP, there is a photo of a 66-year-old grandmother with four or five grandkids smiling back at you.  Boys you remember sitting around a small transistor radio at listening to the World Series at recess are grandfathers and often married to their high school sweethearts for the last 40 years or more.

Each person is a story and if you follow him or her on Facebook you can see the whole thing laid out before you.  You get to see the story and skip to the present day.  Now since most of us are from 65 to 75 we get to see all the really important parts and really how everyone has changed or not.  So much fun and so so so interesting.  Lots of us really haven’t changed all that much. The nice guys are still really nice.  Funny friends are still funny.  Some surprises.  Not too many.

I have been able to see what one or two of my youthful crushes look like in there 60’s and I get to see their lives now and I learn what they have accomplished in the last 50 years.  I get to see their wives and their kids and grandkids.  CAN YOU IMAGINE?   It’s a sneaky way of looking into their windows and peeping into their keyholes.  As an avid reader and lover of stories, Facebook is a book and we get to read the past and the present everyday lives of people we knew as children and young adults.  We get to see what is important to them.

Then there is the time thing.  I went to a very big high school in Chicago with thousands of kids.  I walked through the halls of my high school in a kind of daze with my mind on the outside world.  I couldn’t wait to be an adult and out of high school and on to real life.  Now I have become friends with men and women who I must have walked past or sat next to hundreds of times.  I didn’t know them then, however, after becoming friends on FB we are very close friends.  I know their likes and dislikes.  I know lots of their hopes and dreams.  I even know their favorite foods.  On Facebook, I have cyber traveled with them on Safaris and traveled with them to Europe.  They send photos, sometimes every day!

I have new FB friends too, some younger some older.   Cyber-men have flirted and cyber wined and dined me, all in photos, not in person.  I have been offered marriage a few times with more than one person, and more than a few times. I suspect it would be a cyber marriage.  I have been offered lots of cybersex.  Would that make me someone’s senior cyber lover?  Who knows?  I have been offered real romance and a home to move into with several bedrooms and a nice garden.  This didn’t come with marriage just sex I guess.  I didn’t take him up on it.   This same widowed writer wrote two romantic poems for me and one of these poems was published with my name as the inspiration for the poem listed under the title.  This same cyber lover met someone new and he took my name off of the poem.  I think that this is pretty funny, however; at the time I was slightly angry.   I unfriended him.  I have decided that “unfriended” should be a word. BTW that is a very modern thing to do… “TO UNFRIEND SOMEONE”  You can actually cyber erase someone from your life!  (Too bad you can’t do that in real life.)

One of the many really addictive habits I have acquired being a Facebook fanatic has to do with the fabulous Facebook groups. I am a member of two Chicago groups, two movie groups, history groups, art groups, and music groups.  I often spend time escaping into FB groups reading about the past in my Gilded Age Group or discussing the best movie from the 1940s with my TCM group.  If you are a Facebook aficionado you know that Facebook is a perfect way to avoid many disagreeable tasks that must be done, like vacuuming, doing dishes, taxes or any work at all.

While, many people have criticized you, Facebook.   You have added a lot of fun and excitement to this woman’s life.  Thank you for letting me connect with so many old friends.  Thank you for all of my new friends.  How many 68-year-old women are propositioned a few times a month?  It keeps me young.  I still think that I could make someone a super cyber wife.  You don’t have to leave your house or apartment.  Just type me a proposal and push enter.

Until Next Week…

Everyone always tells you … it starts when you are very young.  All adults tell you over and over and again, “You’ll see.  You will blink your eyes and you will be 40.  Then you will blink again and you will be old.”

  As a child or a teen, you just don’t believe it.  Life just drags by waiting and waiting and waiting, until you are out of high school.  Then, at last, you start college and you start to notice, just a little bit, time flies by, as your final paper is due.  Semesters turn into years and you are out of college looking for a job.  You have lots of fun for a few years and then MARRIGE!   After a few years then out pops a CHILD.  How did that happen you wonder?  Just about when you have figured out how that particular blessed event occurred, then what happens?  Out pops another blessed event, ANOTHER CHILD!

 One day you are cleaning the cat’s hairball off of your favorite Oriental rug after taking the dog out for his fourth walk of the day, your two boys are fighting over the remote and the pasta on the stove has boiled over when your mother comes for a visit.  You try to get some sympathy from her by explaining your day.  When you complain about the kids taking up all of your days and nights, your mother says, “Take time to enjoy them now” she announces firmly as she looks around the room, waves her arms and hands in an open gesture, “because soon you will look back and wish they were your little boys again.  You will miss the cat and the dog and these very problems.” As a tired and overworked mother of two boys, pet owner, wife, and working-woman, you shake your head and answer her, “OH NO, I won’t.  I’ll revel in the joy of having a moment to myself.”

Well, just to let you know everyone was right. I was wrong. I blinked my eyes and I was 45 and I blinked again and I was 65 and now, in a few days, I will be 68.  ME, 68 YEARS OLD!  HOW DID IT HAPPEN AND WHAT HAPPENED TO MY YOUTH?

BTW, who are these two men who come to visit me? 

 The one guy has a tattoo and a girlfriend and he just found two cats that he is caring for, feeding, and taking to get checkups at his local vet?  He goes to work every day and he just got a small promotion.  He rents his own apartment.  He has a beard!!!  He looks very familiar.  This young man has an older brother who recently moved into my guest bedroom for a while.  He has a nice personality.  This fellow is tall.  He can reach bowls for me that are stored on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinets.  He takes care of my pets and helps me with my computer and he does most of the cooking. This big guy is on Twitter.  He has 690 followers.  He lets me use his car since mine was totaled last year when a young man (almost his age) ran a light and smashed into my Jeep. The young man that is living with me seems familiar to me too.   Where have I seen these men before?

Oh Yes, I forgot, 32 years have passed.  I blinked.  These two men are my sons.  They are the very same boys that used to fight in the living room over the remote, and fight with me when I tried to help them with their homework.  They don’t fight anymore they watch sport’s channels and go out for fast food.  They kiss me hello and goodbye.  These two men were the two little boys that I once complained to my mother about while wiping my furrowed brow saying, “I just can’t wait until they are men.”  Here it is.  They are men and just the other day I looked at a photo of us together.  (We were on vacation when my children were young.)  The boys were leaning on each other sitting on a bench and I was standing behind them with my arms around both of them.  Then, it hit me.  For a few minutes, I wished that they were young again.  I missed my little boys fighting and yelling and the mixture of fun and worry and constantly picking up toys on the floor and buying school supplies.  I missed all of it.

I heard my mother’s voice again, in my imagination, and I could see her smiling at me, saying, “See, honey, I told you so.”  She was right, of course.  They were all right.  It all goes by so fast and in a blink of an eye however, there are a few things that “they” didn’t mention.

Frankly, I’m also glad that my boys are now grown, men.  I’m glad my son is finding his own way in the world.  My baby is a man and he is holding a job.  He got a promotion.  He is a nice man and he has a very nice girlfriend.  I like her, he likes her and he is happy.  He is a loving, respectful, person.

My oldest son is a kind, thoughtful, caring man, with a good sense of humor and a generous spirit.  He is smart. He helps both of his parents with their businesses.  He fixes our phones and our computer mistakes.  He does my taxes for heaven’s sake!  He runs my errands.  He is an excellent chef and he handles most of the pet issues.  I have two grown sons that are good men and they love each other.

Now, back to my future.  Unless some unforeseen events happen, in the next two weeks, I will be 68 years old.  Then, in the blink of an eye, well, you get the idea, I will either be really, really, old, 90 something, and reciting my new post for my blog in my computer, who will probably be auto-correcting me, or, I will be thinking up new ideas for a blog in that great big unknown. “Beyond the Beyond.”  In the meantime, I am going to go up to every young person I know and say to them, “Just wait, you will see, in the blink of an eye you will be 40 and blink again and you will be 65.”

 It does go by quickly.  Hang on tight because, it’s a very fast ride but it is a fun, interesting, sometimes exciting ride, potholes and all.  

Until Next Week… 

One of my favorite films is “All About Eve” which features an all-star cast.  The best scene is at a cocktail party.  The main character, played by Bette Davis, stands on the steps of a small stairway leading to her sunken living room she makes an announcement to her guests, just after finishing her second martini, “Fasten your seat belts.  It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Just yesterday on the other side of the world there was a huge plane that upon landing split into several pieces.  The passengers were seen jumping out of many the pieces of the plane that were torn wide open.  So far, miraculously there haven’t been any reported deaths.  A spokesperson from the airline was quoted as saying that the plane had a “rather rough landing” A ROUGH LANDING?  I saw the photos of the plane and it was literally sliced into about six pieces!  Now that is a man who sees an obvious disaster (or close to a disaster) and he sees the disaster as a “rough landing”.  I am assuming that this is exactly why this man was chosen as a spokesperson for this airline.  He sees a bag of soon to be spoiled lemons and he makes a big, beautiful, crystal, pitcher, of lemonade.

 As I write this post it is the second day in a row that I have had back pain.  Not just a little back pain, a back pain that was so bad yesterday that I went to the emergency room at my local hospital.   It is a hospital that at this point knows me well.  I wouldn’t say we are exactly best friends yet, however, when I put my drivers’ license into the machine located near the hospital entrance, the machine welcomed me back and told me to have a seat and to wait for the nurse to arrive to pick me up.

 After many tests and five different kinds of medication, I was released.  My son picked me up due to the fact that I was drugged to the hilt and I returned to my apartment.   I was tired and drugged, however, I still had back pain.  I decided, what the heck, and I took two more Tylenol for good measure.  If they didn’t kill me, at the very least they might help. Thank God, I slept through the night.

 I have had this horrible back pain in the past, for the last five years, about once a year. 

 Doctors haven’t been able to guess why I get this pain or how to relieve the pain.  Here is the very boring part of the post where I am going to explain the pain.  So if you want to skip to the end of this post you may.   You have my permission.  Well, here goes… 

 The pain starts out on the left side of my back in the middle of my back.  It isn’t on a bone, it seems like it is in a muscle, however; when given muscle relaxers I feel weird but I still have the same pain.  When given something for the nerves, I still have pain.  When given painkillers and as you may know, painkillers can kill you, but they don’t kill my pain.  I believe there is a little man somewhere or woman for that matter, who may be pushing pins in a cloth doll that resembles me.  They push one pin in and take it out and wait a few seconds and then they push the pin in again.  It is a type of torture that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, well, maybe a person or two from my past.  No, I wouldn’t even wish it on them.  I know the doctors or nurses reading this blog (assuming a doctor or nurse or two will be reading this blog) are thinking which test that I could take to finally find the answer to my yearly (usually three day) back pain.  To answer these possible questions, I have had every test in the book.  Everything seems perfect.  

I might have an answer.   You see, this pain takes precedence over all other pain.  In other words, if you are having real physical pain, all other pain or problems are pushed to the side.  Physical pain can’t be ignored therefore; all other problems are forgotten, at least for a little while.  The old scary problems have to take second place.  First things first, take away the back pain first before we can concentrate on how you are going to pay your ever-increasing bills or rent.   When you lie awake night after night wondering how you are going to manage life from now until the end of your life, this can be difficult and painful.  So who pops up?  Good old reliable, horrible, excruciating, back pain, that’s who.

 Maybe the best way to handle our problems, even big problems, is to remember what that spokesperson for the airline said about the plane’s landing.    Maybe the thing that looks and feels like a big crash landing to you is really just a rough landing.  Maybe we can jump down from that open gash in the plane and land on our two feet.  Personally, I have some old lemons in the fridge and I have some sugar in my cupboard.  I think that I might make a big pitcher of lemonade tonight.  This weekend I might add some Vodka to it.

Until Next Week… 

Hi Followers,

I am starting to organize my blog for the future.  I would like to categorize my posts to make it easier to find a post that might interest you.  I am also going to add some new pages that I am not going to publish here.  I hope to make my blog into a book someday in the near future.  I will keep you informed.

The last post I published with the title, “Terra Firma” was posted about a year ago.  While searching through my past published posts it looks as if 6 of my posts were deleted.  I will be posting these again in the next week, however, I will let you know that these posts were published in the past and somehow deleted.

Thank you for following my blog.  Please note, that I am happy to read your comments, ideas, suggestions as well as your own stories about your lives.

In the dictionary, Terra Firma means dry land however, in Latin it means, solid land. 

 In the last week, I had a birthday. I often get a bit nostalgic and well, even more than nostalgic, actually I often feel quite sad lately, for a few days before and after my birthday. Did you ever read or see the play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder? There is a section of the play where the main character dies.  She is allowed to go back in time to relive one day in her past.  She chooses one of her birthdays.  She sees her mother and father and her friends and relatives talking among themselves and talking about their planned celebration.  Her ghost watches the action that is all in the past. At first, she is thrilled to see and hear the family and friends.  She is fascinated with how young her parents looked at the time.  Soon it becomes too emotional for her and she cries out, for the action to stop.  Looking back can be too sad and too emotional for me and really, maybe, for all of us. 

 I try not to go back in time and I do a pretty good job of it, most of the time.  I try to concentrate on the present and the future. Even when I look back at the past I am usually able to separate the past and my emotions regarding the past, however, for some reason that cool exterior breaks down much like a cookie that crumbles, around my birthday each year.   You see my mother used to make a big deal about our birthdays.  Once, many years ago I heard the writer Calvin Trillion on television and he was talking about his wife’s birthday.  Mr. Trillion said that his wife doesn’t have a birthday. He said that she has a “birth- week”. She celebrates her birthday for an entire week.  Well, that is what I used to have when I was a child.  My mother would have a family birthday, with just my mother and father and sisters.  I would get to choose my favorite dinner and my favorite cake that my mother would make for me.  I got presents from my mom and dad and sisters.  Then we would have an extended family birthday party with my grandparents and aunts and uncles.  More dinner, more cake, and more presents … then last but certainly not least I would have my birthday party with my friends from school.  My father, who was well known in the cake business, would decorate my cake and there was more cake and lunch and presents.  We had great parties!   Now everyone is gone.  My grandparents and all of the aunts and uncles from the Chicago area, and my parents and my youngest sister and some of my friends are gone.  So now it is a bit of a challenge to get through each birthday, but I do, and I am grateful that I am still here, alive and well. 

Lately, I guess due to my “birth- week”, this week somehow makes me reevaluate my past.   I consider what is happening in my present situation and lastly I try to imagine a possible future.  I noticed one very interesting fact.  Recently, I heard a man on television mention how happy he was to be back on terra firma… after a flood in his city. I thought how my terra is, and never has been, very firma, so to speak.  I started counting (no, not calories) but homes and apartments and or condos that I have lived in from 1 year old to my 67 years on earth.  I have moved 24 times.  Chicago 7 moves, (I am also going to count college) 2 different rooms in my college in Iowa, 2 apartments in London and 2 apartments in Paris, 2 places in Europe (when I was first married), 8 homes and apartments in Colorado and 1 home in Arizona.  That makes 24 and counting… 

 So looking back in time, at my life, as a Pisces, born in March, the water sign, of two slippery fish swimming in opposite directions; I can say, with conviction, that I am a very good swimmer.  I can swim, float, I can swim strong and steadily avoiding sharks and danger zones, most of the time.  I have had to tread water, keeping my head above water sometimes for years at a time. I did learn how to dive but I still prefer to jump in, holding my nose, with eyes closed.  Now there have been times when I have had to manage my family and my life on terra (land) and sometimes I have had to avoid avalanches blocking the road and unexpected rock slides, often with one child under each arm pulling a dog and two cats behind me.  The terra is definitely a challenge, moving, moving, moving, on to the future, leaving some things and some people behind.  The secret is to keep going, jumping over the potholes, avoiding earthquakes, skirting around possible erupting volcanoes.  

Was there help out there in the past and in the present?   Golly, yes. Life preservers, floatation devises, canoes, on the water and on land scooters, wagons, roller-skates, motorbikes… all types of transportation that help you glide past lots of problems and pitfalls.  You might ask who (or is it whom?) provides a great deal of this life-saving emergency equipment?   It is, close family members, that help carry the heavy load, and the rest is the helping hands from friends and sometimes even from total strangers.  

There are lots of people who have lived 90% of their lives on terra firma.  I have known some.  I have seen their photos.  I have the greatest respect for people and families that have managed strong lives on very strong stable terra firma.  It would be nice.  There is always the possibility that sometime in the future I might move to that elusive spot somewhere on this planet earth.  Until that time, and on this particular birth-week I would like to thank all of the people who have helped my family and me through the years with that life saving helping hand.  I hope you all know who you are, in the here and now as well as in the far and distant past. I’m still here, thanks again. BTW I had my favorite lemon cake and Champagne on my birthday.   It was a nice birthday after all. 

Until Next Week… 

Now I am going to admit something and this is going to make me sound very, stupid for many reasons, which I will list without further ado.  1. I graduated from a college in Europe with a double major, in World History and ENGLISH LITERATURE.  2. I have two college degrees and the second one was in COMMUNICATIONS.  3. I had pretty good grades in English. 4. I am an avid reader and I have read hundreds of books.  I am not sure how many books that I have read in my life except to say that for many years I read 3 to 4 books (or more?) a week, until the birth of my first son when my constant love of reading took a big hit.  5. I was one of the very few kids on earth who loved to diagram sentences.  6. I am over 60 but, so far, I think my brain is still functioning, hopefully, about on the same level for the last few years.  I am not saying that my mind isn’t going to turn to mush in the next year or two but so far so good.

 This is my embarrassing statement.  A few days ago I couldn’t remember the definition of a preposition and then when I read the definition it really didn’t make any sense to me.  I knew the general meaning and many words that are used as prepositions such as “inside, up, besides, below, above, across.” I had to look up the definition to explain it to another person.  Here is the definition that Siri recited to me when I asked her the definition of a Preposition. (my phone tells me almost everything that I need to know on a need to know basis.)

This is according to Siri,

[A word governing and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause, as in “the man on the platform,” “she arrived after dinner”] 

What a preposition does is explain the relationship between two things like a noun and a verb.  It connects the noun with the verb.  It shows us how two things are related.  It hooks things together.  Now, the whole preposition thing gets very confusing unless you are shown some examples.  Sometimes a word can be a preposition and sometimes it’s not a preposition such as, “The dog ran down the street.” and, “Put that dog down!”  Confusing right?  I had a lot of explaining to do and I had a lot of reading to do to be able to explain the in’s and out’s of the confusing, preposition.

Of course, if you know me or if you have been reading my blog lately you might realize that this all had more of a meaning to me than just proper English and proper grammar.  Now, what some of us need is a preposition for our lives to explain the relations we have to our lives and to our friends and to our past and to our future.  How does it connect?

What I need is a Preposition working for me in my life. I am going to call him Bill.  So, Bill, show me how to connect with that verb. How I’m going to pay Bill and is anyone guess?  I am not in a position to throw money around lately, especially to a Preposition.

Bill, explain to me what my connection is to my, “Was-band” How exactly did he end up (after separating 17 years ago) sleeping on the couch in my living room?  Explain that connection to me, Bill.  I know, I know, he is the father of my two sons and he is still my “Was-band” and I am still way, too nice to everyone.   Got it.

 While you are at it Bill, show me how I am going to connect to the next phase of my life heading into my 70’s.  Yes, I’ll be in my 70’s in just two years, six weeks and five days.  So Bill, how am I going to “hook up” to a new job at 67 going on 68 that will pay for myself, two other people and three pets?  Better yet, Bill, tell me how am I going to connect or hook up with any human when I am this old and working and worrying and not sleeping enough and my “Was-band” is sleeping on my couch?

It is interesting that actually there are a lot of women over 60 in this same position, Bill.  It might be that we spent so much time thinking of everyone else and doing for everyone else and keeping everyone else alive, that we never noticed that time was going past us very fast.  We never stopped long enough, to imagine where we were going to end up, in our 60’s.

Well, Bill, the good news is, that I am a pretty strong person and I am still working and still trying to keep it all together and I am not giving up just yet.  I still like writing my blog and I am still considering looking for that Preposition that shows how that noun connects to the verb.  If you know one and he is interested, I am relatively available.  Please give him my number.  I have heard that Prepositions are good at combining with a noun or a pronoun.  They aren’t flashy and they can make a mean Prepositional phrase.   At least, that’s what Siri told me. 

Until Next Week…

Don’t ask me why I decided to get the Obituary Notices from the Aspen News in my email but I guess when I did that I must have had a good reason.  Now, this is how you know you are really getting old, I actually read them.  Why? I’m not sure.  I suppose originally maybe I wanted to see if anyone I knew in the past, had passed!  Frankly, I only vaguely remember signing up to receive the “want ads” so, maybe I signed up for the obituary notices at the same time?  I might have done this to see if any of my old bosses from a previous job might have kicked the bucket.  In 2009 I was downsized to one day a week working for a group of horrible, terrible, no good, slimy creeps.  When hearing my new, one day a week, schedule, I QUIT!   In an almost four year period, I had worked for five or more terrible general managers and several horrible men and one or two horrible women for a semi-combined home management /real estate company.   I was called a floater and I had to learn how to run four different offices in and around Aspen, Colorado. For about six or seven months during this period, I worked in one of the company’s offices in a town next to Aspen with a group of perhaps the coldest, meanest, most offensive, men that I have ever had the unfortunate luck to be introduced to.  I worked at a desk directly across the room and faced the bosses’ assistant.  After this woman passes through this life to the other side, it is my humble belief and I am pretty sure that I am right about this belief, that the Devil has made his pitch for her to be placed in a desk directly in front of the gates of HELL, as his assistant.  I am sure she will do a fine job.  Most of the men from the real estate division will be on the inside of the fiery gates, on their phones trying to make millions of dollars selling the homes of millionaires’ and billionaires’ mansions.  They will carry on in Hell with their present careers.  If I die and I spot any of these people I will be unhappily aware that I haven’t made it to the “Pearly Gates”.  My wish for this life is that I will never have to see or speak to any of these people again and when or if I do have to gaze once more on any of their faces it will be from the Obituary Notices in the Aspen Newspaper.

Well, now to get to my main point.  Today I read two obituaries of two men.  Both of these men were very good looking and had what read like two very busy, interesting lives.  They were both liked and loved by many people and both had left loved ones behind.  It looked very much like these men were very good men.  Lots of people knew them and loved them.  They will be missed.  One man was three years younger and one man was twelve years younger than my 67 years.  They both passed away in the last few days.  It looks like their deaths were anticipated.  I, therefore, made the conclusion that they each had been ill for a long time.

If you haven’t noticed by now we all have moved into a new decade.  What happened to the year 2000 and where have I been and what have I been doing for the last twenty years???  I don’t know about you but it now seems as if we are all traveling at lightning speed on a bullet train to the future.  Holy Cow!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  IT IS ALREADY 2020!!  I’m afraid to blink or it might just be 2030 or 2040 when I open my eyes.  Twenty years ago I was still kind of cute.  Men in their 30’s thought I was their age and they still flirted with me.  I still had young boys to raise and my husband and I still slept together.  Whoosh!!!! Gone, it’s all gone.  My boys are men.  My husband is now my husband, that was, or as I call him, my “Was-band”.  I’m not sure I would know what to call myself now?  Would I be a “Was-ife?”

Hitting 2020 has hit me a bit like running my car into a brick wall.   Actually, January 2, 2019, a truck ran head-on into me.  Somehow this event should have prepared me for the year ahead but it didn’t. For the last 37 years, I have been worrying.  I have had very good reasons for worrying.  I had really high hopes for my 60’s.  Surprise!  Life keeps on going and problems keep coming and unexpected issues keep happening.

Hey, I have tons of friends from my past who are calm and happy and comfortable and sitting back and enjoying their lives and their marriages and their retirement and their grandchildren while I am still worrying and wondering how in the heck I am going to keep going.  Life and years are flying by while I worry about paying rent.  Then, this morning I read the Aspen Obituaries.  Two good men are gone.   One man was 64 and one man was 55 years old.

I am facing and have faced big problems since the year 2000 came and went.  Somehow, I am still here and my children are alive and well and my pets are happy and still wrecking my furniture and the Oriental rugs.   My “Was-band” is still his usual pain in the (well you know what) I am still worrying about bills but I get to get up tomorrow morning and I get to see the sunrise again and I get to have a nice cup of coffee with cream and I get to text my youngest son and I get to ask my oldest son what terrible thing is happening on the news.   Tomorrow morning I just might call my old friend in Texas that I have known for over 50 years.  Tonight I am going to have a bowl of stew for dinner and a large glass of wine.

Time is speeding by faster than ever.  I’m still glad to be able to see 2020 arrive and with any luck hopefully, we will be able to see 2021, and 2022, and on into the future.  Worries or no worries, I guess it is all still worth it.  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

Until Next Week…

Have you seen the commercial where the young handsome husband gives his beautiful, young, very skinny, very healthy looking wife a $2,000 stationary bike for Christmas?   She is thrilled to get into better shape for her beloved husband and child so that she is able to survive for many more Christmases and to keep looking attractive and slim for him as she inevitably ages.  I think this wife might want to visit her husband’s office to see exactly what his new secretary looks like.  How much do you want to bet that the secretary is working out after 6 PM at the office gym on a stationary bike?  I think that is where the husband got the idea of buying his wife a stationary bike for Christmas.  Just saying…  Personally, I am not sure that marriage is going to last through the ages but you never know, do you?  A car, a vacation, or a nice piece of jewelry sounds like a better idea to me.  Imagine a wife buying her husband an electric shaver when he has had a beard for many years.  Are you hinting at something?

In my 20’s I had been dating a man for more than two years.  We were in a serious committed relationship.   What did he give me for Christmas?  He bought me one brass candle holder that needed to be attached to the wall.  I was dumbfounded.  Even if he had bought two, well at least I could have put one brass candle holder on either side of the couch with some paintings in-between, but just one brass wall mounted candle holder? Why?

  We had known each other intimately for over two years and that is what he decided to buy me out of everything in the world that he could have bought me for Christmas?   Now if my friend or relative had overheard me talking about a brass candle holder that I had always wanted, then, I would have been thrilled to get this as a gift.   Needless to say, I had never mentioned that to anyone.  This relationship didn’t last.

My younger sister had been dating her boyfriend since high school and they were a happy loving couple.  They had both graduated from college and they both had good jobs.  They were very much a couple and serious about each other.  My sister was very excited about the start of the Christmas season that year as she totally expected to get an engagement ring and a proposal on Christmas day.  The big day at last arrived and she could hardly wait for her boyfriend of seven years to arrive at the door. (I am sure you have guessed by now.)  She opened her package.  It was a medium-sized black purse.  She frantically searched through the purse looking for the small black box that would be holding her engagement ring.  There wasn’t a ring in the purse… the purse was a purse and it wasn’t leather.  That was the end of that relationship.  A year and a half later she married a wonderful, handsome man who gave her an engagement ring for Christmas.

It isn’t the price of the gift that makes a gift important it is the thought that there is some feeling behind the gift that makes it important.  All people really want for Christmas is to know that they are important to you.  It is just knowing that you care about them and what you think about them and that you listen to their likes and dislikes.  That is what makes a gift important.

There is something that I have to admit to you about this season.    Christmas makes me cry. Yep, I cry at everything.  Old movies that I have seen maybe 200 times still make me sob.  I mean when Jimmy Stewart’s brother holds up his glass and makes a toast to Jimmy, “To my brother, the richest man in town.”  Donna Reed is hugging him and he is holding Susie, his daughter, and his son is playing the piano and all of the friends and neighbors who he has helped throughout his life donated money to help him out are smiling and singing and they all toast him together, “To the richest man in town!”    How can you watch that scene even for the 201’st time and not cry?  I do.  I cry.

 I cry at the television commercial where the son is coming home from college and his little sister is up early but his parents are still sleeping and he makes himself a hot heaping cup of delicious Folgers Coffee.  How about when Judy Garland sings, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Margaret O’Brien and she sings “Someday soon we all will be together if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”?   I can’t help it I cry.  The thing is, the fates don’t allow that we will always be together.  The fates can’t be trusted.

So how do we keep enjoying the magic of the season when you are 60 plus?

The past is over and we are still here.  We have to make the best of the present and the future, but if you have lived to 60 and over we know that nothing is certain and life can be hard.  Sometimes life can be very, very hard.  Senior citizens know that life isn’t always a breeze.  The best way to enjoy Christmas is to just live in the present, the Christmas of this year and to give the gift of caring to all of your friends and family.  Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for your friendship.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

Until Next Week…