We At It Again

Jim's Story

Suddenly I'm Single. I will probably never stop mourning the loss of Diane, but I have committed to myself, my son and daughter, and my best friend Bruce to stick his head out of my ass, as he called it, and began to enjoy the world again.

I am a very analytical, logical person. I'm a systems engineer for NASA, I'm in middle and senior management, but still with large, multi-million dollar aerospace engineering projects. I guess I did my job well and we live frugally and invest wisely, so Diane and I can finally retire at 55. We moved from Washington, where I ended my NASA career, to Sarasota, Florida, bought a beautiful house near the beach with stunning views of the city marina, and settled into a new life.

Diane was once a teacher. She taught social studies in 8th grade at a suburban school. She also does her job well and has also taken on some administrative duties to get a raise. Four years ago Diane discovered a lump in one breast, and this led to what turned out to be an endless series of visits to multiple doctors, hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers and eventually was a hospice, then Diane was no longer of this world.

We were married for thirty-six years, had two kids around that time, we raised them and started Josh and Carolyn. Both are married, still live in Virginia, and have given us two grandchildren each, to this day. The grandchildren never met Diane.

Bruce asked me to write about 'my situation' as he called it my story, and the first two attempts I made were like a report on an alternative software system to a missionary. destined to Mars. I tried in this version to be a little more humane instead of educational, like "put your left thumb in your right ear".

I'm not retiring as soon as I thought. I was restless. I tried a wide range of hobbies and sporting activities: golf, tennis, biking, fishing, windsurfing, kayaking, painting, playing the piano, and I could list dozens. something else. Also, there are dozens of charity groups that I volunteer with: Habitat for Humanity, United Way, Red Cross, Jumpstart, SCORE and Boys Club, to name a few. Trying to be this author is also part of this story thanks to Bruce.

Why do I switch from one hobby to another? At first, I was looking for my niche, something that made me happy and somehow contributed to the company. I took classes, attended many conferences and meetings, mentored and mentored others, and gradually realized that I was trying to restore all of my old habits and routines. itself with new activities and under new banners. Bruce told me I was a "retirement failure".

Diane's illness pulled me out of my 'failed retirement', although I seemed productive and happy in other things, but I gave my all to her, and that that's not difficult. I've been doing this for almost forty years since our first date. I was almost more involved with her cancer and her treatments than she was with her. I know more, learn more and talk to more people. I wanted to make sure we didn't overlook anything. I don't think we did, and we ended up dealing with another two years of Death after her first prognosis.

Diane tries to make her death "festive". She emphasized that we all celebrate her life instead of mourning her death. We tried, but there were tears in our eyes. When we moved into hospice, our children came down and the neighbors kept coming to our door to offer support and possibly condolences after Diane left. My friend Bruce and his wife Mindy became my mainstay. I cried a lot, they hugged me, then they put me back into shape a little bit and I started running on my own. We had a celebration of life, and many of our friends and I spoke at length about the highlights of our memory of Diane. I laughed and cried on a very special day. After that, I felt so empty.

I cried in my sleep for a month, then gradually got over the pain of loss. At first, I couldn't even believe she was gone. I went to the kitchen, expecting her to be busy cooking breakfast or washing the dishes the night before, but she wasn't there. Then I got mad at her for leaving me and then the doctors who seemed powerless in what they could do for her. After this step, the resignation is established.

Mindy instilled fear in me as I dined with them with a simple line: “Jim, I think it's time you two started dating again. Diane made me promise to get you back on track, and… it was time. Come on, it's been three years and you've done nothing but charity and cleaning around the house. "

I've been spitting and spitting for a week thinking about this possibility. One day I was hanging out at the local 'meat market', where I saw attractive, younger women. Several of them danced with me, and I ended up inviting one of them home. She does, and we begin a steamy romance. The romance suddenly turned to pregnancy, and oh my god, I had to deal with giving birth and raising a child for another twenty years. I will be eighty years old with a kid in college. I'm not the type to have fun in a bar.

In another dream, I decided to start going to church again. This dream was against me. Instead of hot young women, I was suddenly surrounded by dozens of gray-haired women, all from the comforter circle. They vie for my attention, but thinking about my old, plump or even obese form, and tasteless intellect, I find myself in a little store of terror. I'm not the religious type either.

I always waited for a desirable reason to come, but it never happened to me. My "fantasies" are really the reality nightmares of the day. I didn't let any of them haunt me.

Edie's Story

Two years before our planned retirement, Harry, my husband, had a serious heart attack in his sleep. One minute he was there, and the next minute I was at the funeral home on a stretcher as I stood in my robes and watched two men from the funeral home carry him away forever. I miss him, but somehow I'm happy that I didn't have to put up with his retirement for so long. Harry was a perfectionist, and I knew that as soon as he started spending more time indoors instead of consulting with clients, I became the center of reviews and research. study of time and his movements. He would make countless suggestions for me to improve my laundry, my cooking, my wardrobe layout, my energy efficient grocery store arrangement, and more. That's what Harry did. Somehow, I managed to keep him out of the sales department where I ran for a modeling agency.

So I find myself at fifty-five single, but with many friends, many of whom are divorced women. Since I'm not divorced, I don't have the bitterness, resistance, love and leave mentality most of them have. I had been in a pretty happy marriage for almost thirty years, and I thought I had run out of happy times with someone of the opposite sex.

Harry is not only a good supplier, but often describes himself as "over-secured". So, as a widow, I was suddenly the beneficiary of a small fortune. I will never have to worry about money again, and neither will our son and daughter. Penny works in publishing in Chicago. Mark is a professional soldier stationed in Germany, coming and going regularly from the Middle East. He loves it there and even has a German girlfriend.

I was out of work just a few months before I was about to quit. I used to be in charge of running a branch of an international modeling agency. The older I get, the younger the girls we represent look. I'm always surprised when one of them tells me she has trouble parking; I couldn't believe she was old enough to drive.

Once I'm in their shoes, enjoy the ride and be the center of attention as I model various clothing lines or just my own skin. I started in my teens, then I even entered several beauty pageants, to end up winning some of the major regional pageants. These efforts were a natural transition to a modeling career. This industry has changed a lot over the years. For a while, I modeled when I wasn't running an office, but ended up choosing to do business development and agency instead of modeling. I started this transition in my late twenties, and despite that, I often did a few “gigs” to keep my place on the corporate front. I think I'm really a showman.

Although I am "retired", I see mostly male friends who are the husbands of some of my married friends and neighbors when I am invited to a dinner party, but I have no voice. inside to say that I am an incomplete person without a permanent man my life. I can still manage in a mixed company and I appreciate the diversity of my surroundings. In fact, I find it strange that the women who feel the need for a man seem to be all my divorced friends who have spoken out for hours about their lack of male companionship. . They often wonder why I don't feel the same way. Of course, two minutes later, they're going to denigrate their ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends, and then all men. If I had been a man in front of them, I would have run at full speed the other way. My friend Rita Styles and I had coffee at Starbucks late one morning. She is married to a really nice man, Hank, and is the smartest woman I know. He's also quite handsome. I think his IQ must be on the genius level. Rita could be a role model, except that she started a computer programming business and made money throughout her career, especially when she sold the business she created.

Rita said, “Edie, you are a beautiful woman, and I know you have become fiercely independent since Harry's death; however, i think you should think about dating...and i don't mean your divorced friends hang out too. "

I laughed, 'Why would I want to do that? I stopped dating when I fell in love with Harry. I had it in my panties back then, and from what I've heard from girls, this is something guys still want to do even though they're over thirty. You know, Harry and I are trying to reverse our old-fashioned sex lives. "

Rita smiled. "Men always want sex, and if they're good you know it's worth it. It doesn't matter whether you have sex or not at all. You, my dear friend, become very isolating in your thoughts and in your social life. You may have regained your mental virginity, but I think it's time for you to lose it again."

"I will think about it." It's my standard passive-aggressive response to things I don't want to do. I don't want to think about finding a partner of any kind, but hopefully the answer will satisfy Rita.

No.

Rita said, “Oh, good. I'll think about it too, and maybe we can come up with a plan.

* * * * *

Bruce didn't ask, he informed me over a beer in his garden that I had an ordered gig for dinner at their house on Saturday night. He said, "Look at Jim, Mindy has this friend Rita, and she has a widowed friend named Edie, who's clearly a knockout, and they made this dinner for you and Edie meets Rita and Hank are also coming, but you and Edie are the main attraction. If I don't deliver you to the table, Mindy told me I was cut off for two years; come on, man, you've gotta help me out by coming."

I feigned, "I feel a heavy dose of the Asian flu coming on." I felt my forehead.

"You have to. This is what we were talking to you about weeks ago. You've got to start dating."

"I don't even know this Edie person. What will I say to her? What if she... I don't know... expect something to happen? Does she even have a brain in her head? "

" Jim, man, comes to the party. There is no preconception about how things will end. "

" What do you know about this person from Edie?

Bruce smiled. "I haven't met her yet, but Mindy told Rita when she was described, so I listened. I'm willing to give Mindy to Edie if you don't accept it."

I motioned to him to be open to more information.