I
had an unexpected
gift of time last night. My laptop, on its last legs, was taunting me
with its increasingly frequent spinning rainbow. I’ll
stop any moment,...promise.
My TV decided to mimic its techie cousin, my Netflix show suddenly
freezing before going dark, a spinning outline of a red circle
hijacking the screen before some message appeared, inviting me to try
again later. I pressed buttons on my remote. Power. Netflix. The same
show, the same message. Tried my geriatric show of the moment, “The
Kominsky Method” only to get the same result.
I
glanced at my clock radio. 8:49. Although sleepiness was kicking in
from my meds, I blinked hard a few times to buy another ten or twenty
minutes. I’m not eighty, even if half my TV friends are. Earlier in
the day I’d pushed through to the end of one novel and I wasn’t
ready to start the new one, the massive brick on the floor by my bed.
I turned off the lights, shuffled to the living room, opened the
blinds and plopped on the sofa to gaze at the twinkles lighting up
the periphery of False Creek. Thinking time.
My
aborted
TV
picks
became
an
easy
jumping off point. The
Aussie show I’d been watching, “Offspring”,
was a series in which the main character is
an
in-control doctor who has
no control over her dating life. “The
Kominsky
Method”
has its own premise
but
I confess
to often
being
sidetracked, wondering how and when Michael Douglas got all those
wrinkles. My
own thoughts became a TV blend. What
has happened to my dating life as I’ve just past the official
midpoint of my fifties?
Cue
spinning rainbow in my brain.
Working
on it...working on it…
Finally
a message:
No
results
for “dating life”.
In
the past, this would have been dangerous territory, a sure shot at a
rapid descent. Woe
is me
and all that. Perhaps it’s on account of the aforementioned meds,
but I knew I’d stay even keel. Feeling like December
had somehow snuck up on me, I thought back on all
of 2019
and counted my dates this year.
Uh…
Hmm…
One!
No. Not really.
Another
not really.
Counting
down. No fingers raised on the second hand. None on the first either.
Zero dates.
Oops.
It’s
true that too much of this year was spent in unsuccessful treatments
for my eating disorder. Large
chunks
of the
calendar
were
blotted
out. Call it a hunch but telling
a guy I’m living
on the
fourth
floor of the
local
hospital for the
next
six weeks
is not something
to slip into a first date
conversation.
Three
months
in a group home
will
also send
him running.
Yes,
some
large
dating
breaks
but
how did the whole year get away from me?
I’ve
obsessed plenty this year about growing old. It hit me hard realizing
I’ve lived in this province for twenty-five years, feeling I have
nothing to show for it. By
gosh, I’d moved
here
fresh-eyed
and eager
at the
ripe
old
age
of
thirty. “Old age”
has
a whole
new
context
now. My
treatment programs immersed me in a world of twenty-somethings where
all their talk of podcasts, tattoos and Disney movies left me feeling
ancient and out of touch. There have been moments of sheer panic this
year.
The
clock won’t stop ticking!
The
best days are behind me!
Why
does my “best” seem like a Christmas stocking
full of oranges and practical gray mittens?
Ancient
and dateless.
It was a dangerous
one-two
punch to hit me
so
close
to
bedtime.
Oh,
the
angst!
The
despair!
The
onslaught
of self-hate!
The
most I could muster up was, Zero
dates...huh.
This
was
a new way of thinking, if it was thinking at all. I couldn’t stoke
anything. I shifted slightly on the sofa and basically flat-lined. No
emotion
whatsoever.
This
after decades consumed by dating woes and no-gos.
Maybe
I’m done.
Maybe
this
is when
I bring home
a
couple
of
Boston ferns
and hang them
in a couple
of
macrame
hanging
pots that I make
myself.
I give
the
plants
hot names
like
Gunnar
and Nigel
and I talk to them
about my
latest
muscle
aches
and
the
days
of KC & the
Sunshine
Band
and
a TV show where
a
character
named
Jack Tripper
pretended
to be
gay
in order
to live
with
two women.
“Zany
stuff, Nigel.”
All
that conversation
helps
them
grow, right?
Maybe
I
dig out my binoculars from my storage
locker,
buy some
gumboots
and wade
into
marshy ditches,
seeking
to spot the
elusive
Ivory-billed
Woodpecker
or the
Kirtland’s
Warbler.
In
the
evenings,
I could search
YouTube
videos
to help
perfect
my
bird
calls.
Maybe
I
get
a newspaper
subscription again. Not to read,
but to start building an
obstacle
course
of
towers
in my condo, something
to freak
out my niece
if
she
should
come
visit
ten
years
from now. Planning ahead
pays off.
It’s
an eerie
feeling
to realize
the
whole
year
has been
a romantic write-off and to simply look at it matter-of-factly.
This morning, I revisited
the
situation.
Prolonged
datelessness.
Reaction?
Reaction...?
Still,
nothing. My responses
in the
past
have
been
unhelpful,
even
dysfunctional, and yet
weirdly
I missed
them.
What happened to my pity party invitation? Where
was
that sense
of
panic, triggering
me
to
go back online,
search
the
dating
sites
and find a new
profile
or
one
that
I’d somehow
overlooked.
At times
like
this,
I always forced
myself
to send
off a message
or
two. It was my way to stop whining and wallowing and to tell
myself
I was actually doing something.
If
this is indeed
my Done-with-Dating
moment,
don’t I deserve
a
response
greater
than a shrug? I’ve
pined
for half a century,
ever
since
I
picked
up a crayon and drew
a castle
for
me
and
my future
princess.
Okay, there
was
some
confusion
to work through, but my happily ever
after
always included
a Plus One.
Where’s
my ice
cream
day, a collection
of open
pints spread
out on the
kitchen
counter,
not a single
tear
dropping into the
already
salted
caramel?
At
the
very
least,
where’s
the
sense
of
relief?
There’s
a whole
chunk
of my brain freed
up
to
think about (or fret
about) something
else.
I
suppose
it
hasn’t settled
in yet.
Too new,
too foreign.
I need
to give
it
more
time
to
see
if
the
shrug
sticks. In
the
meantime,
I’ve
got
some
bird
videos
to watch.
