Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Tina was right, what's love got to do with it?

Forewarning, this is going to be one of those meandering, personal blogs.  And I'm completely sober (though I have had a lot of coffee).

I am an older single mother.  I'll be 42 in less than six months.  I've essentially lived half of my life without much to show for it in terms of conventional measures of success.  I don't own a home, a car, or have a nest egg of any sort.  I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but this morning I woke up thinking about something I actually never think about:  love.  As in romantic love.  

I am not lonely.  I don't want a relationship or a partner.  In March it will be five years since I had sex with or kissed another human being. (I actually do miss kissing more than I miss intercourse, but that's another post.)  What I was trying to remember was the feeling of being in love with someone.  I was trying to remember the tiny joys.  I've only really been in love, and had that love returned, three times in my life.  Once with a woman, the other two times with men.  All of the relationships ended badly, and one ended badly and also in pregnancy.  Put plainly, I suck at relationships.  Like, really suck at them.  My insecurities played a huge part in ending those relationships, and while I remain insecure, I am less insecure about my looks insofar as I don't give a shit that I'm not, nor have I ever been conventionally attractive.  My insecurities rear their ugly heads on other fronts, like those briefly mentioned at the beginning of this post (i.e. lack of professional and financial security or success).  At my age there aren't many people interested in coupling up with a woman like me.  And that's fine.  I don't blame them.  These days, I don't have much to offer a potential partner.  And I miss friendships more than romantic relationships.  But back to those tiny joys of romantic love.  

I don't remember what it feels like to fall in love, much less be in love, with someone willing to love me back.  I remember that I enjoyed little things like Sunday under the covers, coffee before work, movie nights with a bottle of wine, trips to the grocery store, spontaneous sex, hand holding in public, inside jokes...Otherwise, it all felt like so much work.  I never found the right kind of partner.  While I enjoyed some of those tiny joys, I never found someone with whom I could enjoy a deeper connection.  Someone with whom I could read the same books, engage in deep discussions about the bizarre shit that interests me (politics, music, intersectional feminism, critical race theory, economics, education policy, history, the mystery of consciousness, quantum entanglement, income inequality...sexy shit like that).  There was never that level of connection with my lovers, and often barely with any of my friends.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not above weekend marathons of Top Chef or Project Runway (when I'm unemployed, I'm really good at these), but I like to sprinkle my mind trash with the occasional cerebral jolt, you feel me?  Not because I think I'm better than anyone, but because it really is the kind of thing I enjoy.  I guess what I'm saying is that I always wanted to fall in love with someone's mind, and have them fall in love with my mind seeing as how my physical offerings were never going to leave them gasping.  It never happened.  I never found that man/woman.  And now, I'm almost beyond giving a shit.  I'm too old to care about falling in love.  I don't have the liberty of trying.  I have a child I can't support, but must try and support anyway.  Oh yes, there's my child to include in the new calculus.  What man/woman would want to be with a woman (like me) who has a child?  Again, none that I've known.   

A different version of me would have found this all very depressing.  Today's version thinks it is what it is.  You get old.  You become even more unattractive.  And you fail to impress the world.  You also forget what it ever felt like to be in love.   

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