Phil's News For Those Mid-Life Blues

     It was quiet, finally. The house was empty, and I was alone, a widower, on my own in a house that was accustomed to sheltering a family. My wife of twenty-seven years had survived on life support for two days before the kids – – all in their thirties, some with children of their own – – and I observed her wish to avoid any kind of prolonged, artificial life. We decided together to have life support removed. We settled affairs, made memorial arrangements, grieved, each in our way figuring out what would come next. What came next for me unfolded unexpectedly, and swiftly. 

      The truth is that the marriage had been difficult.  After twenty-seven years, we had grown weary of each other. The arguments were getting louder, we were happier in separate rooms than together, and each of us was always irritated by one thing or another. Despite this, I was having trouble adjusting to living alone. I wasn’t sleeping well in the king-sized bed that felt cavernous and empty. I didn’t know how to spend my down time because there were no marching orders given, and no one dictating how my time was spent. I even began to be worried about my sanity, as every little creak or whine made me think the ghost of my wife was lurking in the house.

      After a week off from work, my return to the job restored a semblance of normalcy for me. I got used to making dinner when I arrived home in the evening. Eventually, I settled into a routine of cooking, cleaning, and winding down daily, then preparing for bed. The weekends presented the most challenges, as I had so much free time and no plans on what to do with it.

    I felt so pathetic at first; I had no clue how to manage myself. After so many years as part of a couple, I didn’t really know who I was as an individual.  Our lives and daily routines were so intertwined that, once untethered, the world was new again. I had to discover who I was… find myself, as they say. I had no clue where to start, but I understood that a new sense of myself had the potential to bloom.  

     I thought to myself, do I want to be alone? Do I want to date again, share part of my life with someone new?  I liked the companionship of a woman, the friendship, commitment, and intimacy but first I needed to be comfortable with life on my own. I could do whatever I wanted, so I challenged myself: what would I love to do?  

    A haphazard trip to Vegas was first on my list.  After I got back from my four days in Vegas (that’s a story for another time) I decided to become a gym rat. I figured that the least I could do was lose a few pounds, firm things up, improve my curb appeal.  Working out again at over fifty years old is no small task. I needed to conjure the initiative and drive to get it done every day. As a retired Navy man, I was no stranger to exercising; I had twenty years of military exercise routines to draw from. But I had retired sixteen years ago, and the old locomotive was going to need a lot of coal to fire the engines back up.  I started out slowly until I could hit every mark: free weight bench press, incline bench, shoulder press, dumbbell curls, weighted lateral pulls, overhead ab pull-downs, squats, and finally 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer —easier on the knees. I felt amazing! Within a month, I started turning heads in the local grocery store (no laughing!).  I noticed that I was being noticed walking through department stores. There were quick glances and soft smiles as I passed by. It was an exciting feeling.

    I thought, maybe I could actually be with somebody. You know… have a girlfriend. But I was like a broken PlayStation; I had no “game.”  I once tried to approach a woman that had given me a quick smile, and she all but ran away from me. Maybe it was my awkward approach. I saw her buying Collard greens in and said politely, “Excuse me, do you season those greens with pork or something smoked?”

She took two steps back. “These aren’t for me,” she told me in her unfriendliest tone, “I’m buying these for somebody else.”  She whipped her cart around and hastily exited the produce department.

     It turned out that maybe the quick smiles weren’t green lights to approach the runway. Instead, they seemed to be courteous acknowledgements that maybe you have potential, but just not with me. I needed a forum, a platform that was designed for people to meet. Friends at work told me to try setting up a profile on online dating sites like Match.com, Ok Cupid, eHarmony.  A profile? I was 54 years old and had no Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account, much less a personal online profile.

      I knew it was the modern dating scene though, so what choice did I have? I created profiles on various dating sites. I got a few hits and had a couple of women I was chatting back and forth with regularly. I actually even went on a date with a woman in her thirties. I had accidentally misrepresented my age in the profile and while I had been told often that I didn’t look my age, when I started talking to her about my grandkids, she called me on it. She stayed to finish the meal, but she ghosted me after that: no email, no contact on my profile, just crickets. As time went on, I was pretty active. I would get hits on the dating sites and have conversations with all kinds of women. Unfortunately, the one thing I ran into a lot were women who were not completely honest.

     There were two women in particular that I talked with and every time I would suggest they meet up, something always interfered, or they made excuses. I got a little agitated and aggressive and told them I couldn’t just have an e-relationship. I liked holding hands, seeing a smile in person, the smell of a luscious perfume. Separately, they both confessed they weren’t living locally as they’d let on. One woman was in Wisconsin and the other woman was in Texas. They both asked if I could foot the bill for a plane ticket for a face-to-face meeting, but I wasn’t willing to do that.

    I was frustrated. I wasn’t finding the quality woman I was searching for.  Instead, I encountered women who were looking for investors in some start-up they were attempting, or help getting their small business off the ground, or money for school. It was all just a money grab. I was so close to giving up and shutting all the profiles down because I was dealing with more deception than I had a stomach for. One particular dating site had somehow linked my profile to a hookup site that invited me into the fray of niche adult activities: S&M, threesomes, and other things.

    At this point, COVID had set the entire world on alert. Everyone was confined to their homes, wearing face masks to stave off the deadly, viral infection for which there was no vaccine or cure. There was no way I was looking for any exposure to more people than necessary. I was looking for just one person. Just one wonderful woman who would be a good fit for me. I was truly at the end of my rope.

     I decided to make one more round with the profiles for good measure, and just be done with it. It was in that last search that I noticed another profile that seemed really interesting. She was local, very pretty, and we shared a lot of similar interests. I sent electronic flirts to her for several days with no response. Finally, I used the site’s chat option to nudge her, “Come on… holla at a Good Brother.” She sent an amused, friendly response, told me that the electronic flirts were easy to ignore, but that my direct message had made her smile. We exchanged chats just a few times until she gave me her number so we could text each other directly. To my delight, texting didn’t last long; she invited me to give her a call, and the sound of her voice was every good thing. 

       Phone calls led to lunch at a local winery. I donned a set of blue jeans my Wolfers shoes and a blue blazer. I liked her style already, a winery. I had been to wine-tastings before, having gotten comped tickets by a local casino, but never a winery.

    We arrived atop a setting of rolling hills and pastures on the outskirts of the city. It was quite scenic and beautiful. She arrived and I was smitten. She was very beautiful, voluptuous and curvy; her brown skin flawless and her mane of dark silky hair was fluffed out into a swirl of thick curls. She had on sunglasses that made her look cooler than the other side of the pillow. She was a couple inches taller than me, but it went well with her persona. She exuded an air of confidence and elegance with just a smidgen of hood, (the perfect combination, she was checking all the boxes). 

     She smiled and we shook hands. We spoke of our past, present, and future it was clear that she was highly educated. We hit it off quite well. Lightly conversing over the flight of local wines, a salad and sandwiches at an outdoor setting overlooking the peaks and valleys of the region. We both asked all the right questions and the more I learned about her the more I wanted to know. The rest is history. We’ve been married for three glorious years, and she still takes my breath away!

    We are kindred spirits who love exciting and unusual activities. We have gone whitewater rafting on the Deschutes River, vacationed in Cancun and went parasailing, spent three days in Waikiki and took a helicopter tour of the Island, and on a crisp morning in July went riding in a hot air balloon! What an amazing woman! I was so glad I didn’t give up on finding someone and delete my profile that fateful day. I learned that it’s never too late to fulfill your dreams.