Love, Lust, and Life after 40

I’ve been watching Nights in Rodanthe. To be honest, I was so moved by a particular love scene between Diane Lane and Richard Gere that I had to pause the movie and come into my office to write. They may still be dressed at this point, I’m not sure. What spoke to me about this scene, and about the movie in general, is the infinite wisdom that we have to hope age brings us. That wisdom is imparted to us by many, many years of mistakes. Often repeating them time and again. What I hope, what I dream, is that I finally have the wisdom to stop repeating the same mistakes and  to be able to love and be loved  like never before.

I am going to be 45 years old in December. And I am not looking for a May/December romance. What I am looking for is someone who has weathered the hurricanes and come out the next morning, into the sunshine, picking their way through the debris left behind, and finding something new and alive and full of hope and promise. I feel that life now. I feel that hope. In my 20’s and early 30’s I had many lovers. I was thin, I didn’t have gray hair to cover, and there were no slight laugh lines or that tiny furrow that has etched itself between my brows. I thought then that I had it all. In retrospect, I was miserably unhappy. I endured a string of relationships based on obligation. Based on need. Based on a complete lack of self-respect and a warped and unrealistic idea that I was somehow damaged so badly that I deserved nothing more. I settled.

I am not saying that there weren’t wonderful qualities in (some) of these partners. One was a great, young love that started a groundswell of passion that will now serve me well. One made me laugh until I cried. One gave me hope for a family and a future that wasn’t meant to be.

I will be 45 in December. I am heavier than I would like but I feel sexier than I ever have in my life. My hair is loaded with gray and I keep it jet black and severely short and I pierced my nose on my 39th birthday and got my first tattoo at 40. Although I am told that I look younger than my years, I know that every line and every scar tells the history of my life. When those lines deepen, I want them to be crinkles in the corners of my eyes rather than a deeper furrow between my brows. I want my laugh lines to show that I have lived well and happy.

I want now to experience the kind of love that I know I am worthy of. I want to feel the intense passion shared by two women who have weathered their own storms and are ready to rebuild again. Something sweet and tender and  fast and furious and delicate and solid and cool, smooth, hot as the hellfire that I feel I’ve emerged from. I want a life, damn it. I want to know what it is like to look your lover in the eye and see that love reflected back at you with such a fire that it takes your breath away and stops your heart for a fleeting instant before she puts her hand over it and sets it to beating again.

I’d like to think that I am wise now. Or at least wiser. That I am done making mistakes. Done settling. Done defending my choices of relationships when everyone around me condemned them as wrong for me and I couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it. I am worthy of more. And someone out there, perhaps someone I already know, is worthy of me.

Ripples

I’m hiding under my comforter hoping the day will slip by unnoticed. It’s a new comforter. Down-filled with a striped duvet and matching shams that ties all of the colors of my sanctuary together. Another attempt to repossess this apartment. To make it mine and only mine. Like the newly organized office and the bookshelves added to display my beloved vases and photos, formerly relegated to lower shelves or crowded cabinets. Or my favorite Klimt piece, Judith II, that now has a place of honor in the hallway, framed by two wrought-iron sconces. He always hated Klimt.

I’m feeling schizophrenic these days. I wake up with panic attacks that choke and gag me until I retch over the toilet. Straightening up, I put on my game face. Stoically brave the day. Taking it minute by minute, hour by hour…time stretching out before me in a seemingly endless succession of ticks and tocks.

I am making a valiant attempt to move on. I am reaching out to others. Friends, casual dates, chance encounters. I have no want of another relationship. My wounds are raw and I can’t lick them clean. My flesh is tender. I can’t talk about him without tears welling in my eyes, my words catching in my throat. I look away. Breathe. Will myself to speak of what has passed.

It is finally, and perhaps blessedly over. I know there will be no turning back now. I know that no matter how much time goes by, things will never change. We will always be the same two people with the same issues. Sparring, clashing, colliding into each other. I take solace in the fact that there is someone out there for me. Eventually. But I tiptoe into the realm of online dating services. The social mixer of the Now Generation. I have barely touched my finger to the water and the fish seem to be leaping into my boat. That boat that rocks and sways and threatens to spill me into another relationship unless I hold steadfast to the splintered wood and maneuver my way through the rapids unscathed. Dry. Safe.

There have been words that reeked of vitriol. So much anger at the fact that I have given up the fight. I couldn’t hold on to a dream that was slipping from my grasp. I had to let it go. That dream was not meant to be. For now my nights are blessedly empty, silent, dark. But today, I pull the comforter over my head and pretend that I’m not here. When I awake, it will be to a new minute, a new hour, a new day.