It never occurred to me in the now eight
years since my late husband died that I wouldn’t find a comparable kind of
companionship with another man.
I admit, in the beginning, when I was 65
and still had a bit of a figure, a whole lot of energy (whenever I wasn’t
sobbing in bed), and less wrinkles, that my mind was set on replicating my
marriage. I think I wanted someone to come out of the woods, maybe even on a
white charging horse and take up the space that was so gapingly open in my life
and heart.
Was it because after 33 years, I had
become comfortable with the routine? Was it that we had worked through so many
levels of misunderstandings and miscommunications that I thought The Universe
owed me a little more time in the zone of compatibility with another human
being?
Losing Yuwach in 2010 was also when I felt
I was in the prime of my sexuality. Physical contact had become a soothing
pattern of touches; kisses were shared as he went out the door to get the mail
and when he returned. I took the time to seek him out before I went to the
store to tell him where I was going and catch a smooch. He met me at the door
when I came back with my arms full.
I didn’t think. I knew I had lost him, but
I didn’t think I might have lost the possibility of never being able to
recreate that pattern.
There has been a short-term relationship
in the meantime. I look back and realize, I didn’t accept this new man as just
that. I attempted to mold him into the form with which I was comfortable. He
protested but I was blind, and my attitude blindsided me. Eventually, we had to
break apart. Only then did I realize what I had done. Fortunately, we have been
able to talk and laugh at the experience and be grateful for what we learned.
We have worked at our friendship, but we admit we don’t want to step again into
partnership.
For all these years alone, it has been as
if I had a hologram attached to my being that was designed to retain a mandated
shape of a partner which could be filled by the vapors of any other man’s energy.
This kind of expectation isn’t fair, and now I know it.
I’ve had to look at myself as one unit and
one unit alone. I’ve had to drop all my assumptions of what another partner
might look like, be like, and do.
But first, I’ve had to be with myself.
When the substitute relationship ended, I
now know I suffered an even more painful period of grief. I was profoundly placed
in the cauldron of fire to finally rearrange my atoms into being a single
individual. No props. No pretending. No fantasies of rescue. Ridiculously plain
and simple self-acceptance and self-love.
Now I look out my window into life as a
73-year-old and realize, “This just might be it.” Living on my own might be
what is here and on the horizon.
Do I mind? You bet I do.
However, I am beginning to believe I can
be authentically me and draw friendships, events, and activities of all kinds to
me which will help me experience not just fulfillment but a full-feeling too.
