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

In full disclosure, I am the mother of two boys… now men. My oldest is 29 years old and my youngest is 21 years old. I adore them and only wish I would have had more. I am a great boy’s mom.   I am the aunt of eight nephews in the USA. I have four nephews in Europe that unfortunately I haven’t seen since they were very young however, some of them have recently connected with me on Facebook. I love them all! To put this in a nut shell… I LOVE MEN always did and always will. I love short men, tall men, chubby men and thin men. I love smart men, strong men, protective men, artistic men, funny men, clever men, men with a twinkle in their eye, and yes gay men too. I love young men, middle-aged men and old men. You can learn something from every age.   I especially love men with good manners who open doors for you, who give up their seats on buses, trains and subways. Men who allow you to go first … and hold out chairs and help you on with your coat. I love men who flirt and wink and occasionally whistle. I love men’s voices… Love to hear men sing… alone or in a choir.  I know women are going to be mad at me for saying this … but I prefer men reporters and men reading the news…. let’s face it … some of the women on the news on television have the most terrible voices… especially when they decide to fight and start yelling their opinions. Okay, now don’t hate me but I love men firefighters and policemen and soldiers in uniforms. I know there are women who are firefighters and policewomen and women soldiers.   I know they are all hard working and wonderful too but this post is about men and I would prefer a man to carry me down a ladder if my building is on fire. I was mugged in my 20’s and the man choked me and hit my head against a brick wall and took money and jewelry from me. Two policemen came to my rescue…. stayed with me and checked my apartment. even looked in my closets and under my bed to make me feel secure. Forgive me policewomen (I love you too) but I am glad men came to save me.

Let’s get this out of the way. I know there are a lot of bad men out there in our world. Men start wars, and murder and rape and hurt women and abuse women and they steal and cheat and leave their wives and children. There are men who abuse their power and attack women in every profession. We hear about this all day, everyday. What we don’t hear about are all the hard working, loving husbands and loving fathers who try to do the right thing every day and help make the world a better place.

All of my doctors with the exception of my eye doctor have been men. As a child of four I fell (or as my mother believed. Her friend’s son pushed me down a cement basement stairway) I had a terrible compound fracture. This happened in a small town and I was rushed to a local hospital and had an operation. The surgeon was one of the most famous bone surgeons in the world. He just liked living in the same small town where he grew up. If you ever meet me… look at my right arm … it is perfect and actually looks better than my left. Wonderful doctors have taken away my pain, saved my life and saved the life of my son. They have listened to me and believed me and tried in everyway to make me and keep me healthy. Thank you.

My Was-band had and has his faults … however, he is 61 years old and works literally day and night like a dog to pay his bills, my son’s college, he helps out my oldest son and pays my rent and basic bills. He recently came down with pneumonia and he had to fly to several countries and work and drive through the night. He had to visit a doctor here and one in Europe. He kept working and managed to keep himself and all of us going. When I had my children for the first year of their lives, he would get up at night to feed and change them so that I could sleep through the night. I won’t go into his faults and yes, they were bad but the good is very good. He always acted proud of me, how I looked, how I acted and he always used my judgment in everything from business to our home. So the good was and is very good.

I have a brother-in-law that is the father of six children. My youngest sister was very ill for a long time. (She passed away a few years ago.) They were married less than a year after they had met. My sister was very, very pretty and sweet and funny and loving. She had many friends and her husband and children loved her. I would say her husband adored her. She was wonderful but she had some issues and of course being very ill for so long is hard on everyone, however, I never saw a man more in love with and devoted to his wife. He did everything on earth to help her to take her to the best doctors and took responsibility for 100% of her treatment. At the same time he worked as a very successful businessman, was and is a wonderful father and brother and Uncle and son. He took responsibility for his mother after his father died. I must say his love for my sister was awe-inspiring. He is another man that isn’t in the news.

We are lucky to have a Roman, Italian in our family. My oldest sister married a tall, handsome, charming man from Rome.  They lived in Rome for the first several years of their marriage and he made my family and me feel as if Italy was our second home. He has intelligence and an easy sophistication. He makes a family dinner a party. He made our family international and a lot more fun. When I was in-between two college degrees he gave me a job. Not just any job, it was a job in a designer shop and he hired my best friend. So it was a fun job with a fun group of people. My sister and my brother-in-law have always been there to save my children and me when we needed saving. Another man you don’t read about.

And now… to the sweet boys, now older men that I knew as a child in elementary and high school, all of you are such nice men and you were all such sweet and thoughtful children. Some of you have passed on and a few are still connected on Facebook.   Feel sorry for the poor children today who don’t live in neighborhoods and who haven’t had the privilege of playing together and growing up together as friends. Was I just lucky? I’m not sure? … All I know is that you have all grown into really wonderful men.

I have been lucky I suppose. I really liked all of the men I dated in the past. They were all very nice, mostly successful, kind, thoughtful men. I liked all of you.   So let’s raise our glasses to men … all of the men, those good men, that have not been seen on TV or in the news lately, but have lived good lives. Cheers to you!

Until next week…