Member-only story
Hope Springs in the Autumn of My Life
I manifested a man out of thin air. On a warm, early-summer breeze coming through my car window, to be exact.
It’s not as though I was pining away, looking for someone to complete me. I have a full life: a career, a house, some close friends, and a focus on wellness that means daily exercise, meditation, and eating the nutritious meals I cook. A romantic entanglement, however, eluded me.
Single for over 2 1/2 years after the end of a lonely, 26-year marriage, I had a suspicion that, deep down, I didn’t really want someone in my life. I equated relationships with emotional labor. I lacked the energy for all that people-pleasing. Yet, every so often I felt a tugging at my heart and a voice would whisper, “I’m lonely. I feel useless and purposeless. This isn’t how I pictured my life would be at this stage of my life.”
It’s not that I wasn’t dating. I’d had a series of first dates courtesy of online dating apps. None were fulfilling, some were downright awkward, and none seemed like relationship material.
The trouble wasn’t that I am looking for the unattainable. It was simply a failure of my imagination.
I assumed that a relationship would entail losing the self who I spent the last several years excavating. I’d just begun to know, love and appreciate who I am, and like a newborn…
