Single at Seventy

 

At sixty-nine you may expect to be widowed. Your partner (of decades) has passed on, leaving you grieving but reliving all those very happy moments that you spent together over the intervening years. You might cry as you remember her smile, and miss her a little more. But it is also very comforting. In your heart of hearts you know that you were loved. Well and truly without a shadow of a doubt, loved.

Perhaps she was the one. Your one and only true love in your life, giving you care and attention and you doing likewise in return. There would have been storms, upsets suited only for teacups and quickly resolved with a nice cuppa tea, a "sorry" and a smile.

Getting dumped by your partner, at your age of almost, practically, seventy, you know, the one whom you truly thought you would end your days with, despite her always changing the subject when you brought up the idea of marriage, now that is another matter altogether. Suddenly there's an unfillable gap where your future used to be.

Like the widowed, 'the dumped' are still pounded by memories. The sweetness, however, vanishes with 'the dumped' as any thought of your past with your now ex becomes torturous. Not just torturous but unrelenting, for love, real love, doesn't just vanish in the morning, but lingers like her perfume. However, her kind of love, it seems, is closer to caveat emptor, and not Amor vincit omnia.

There is no comfort in memories of your once closeness, as those memories have all turned sour with her abandoning you in the twilight years of your final decade. Worse still, when you realise that she really doesn't care about either the past, or your future.

Tinder and it's ilk are really not geared up for we end-of-lifers. It's really no good having the heart and soul of an eighteen year old when your paunch and twelve pack display the extra years as well as the extra pounds that you carry.

Looking in the mirror you exclaim "do I really look that bad!" And of course the answer is yes, you do. You look to your age grouping as they appear to you, maybe worse. Along with any kudos you might have gained by being partnered by a younger woman, that all disappeared when she left, taking her youthful vitality with her.

You're on your own at Seventy, like it or lump it. There are no more surprises awaiting behind corners. No-one is dying to meet you. Your other half has gone missing. The whole concept of a soul mate becomes a sole mate, who is you.

No, singledom, approaching seventy, is a life sentence passed upon 'the dumped' by the dumper. Where two could live as cheaply as one, now one cannot live as cheaply as one. The enjoyment of meals becomes mere eating, wine holds no special merit over water and chocolate, that infamous substitute for sex, really isn't.

And sex, you reflect, now that it has raised its moist head, "have I really got the time and the willpower to go through all that all over again". You sigh. Getting to know another's foibles and especial preferences now seems like an awful amount of time and energy to invest, bearing in mind all that you once invested in that other relationship that went bad, apparently. It is all too much effort with little reward. Towards seventy, neither the spirit nor the flesh are willing, with another.

Well-meaning friends tell you to move on, others say seize the day, while still others suggest that you take one day at a time. It's confusing. Eventually you just sigh some more, as if sighing your life away might be the answer. *sigh*

No. When she said what she said, and did what she did to leave you single, something broke. Some infinitesimal part of you snapped and all the kind words and all the best wishes in the world will just not put you back together again. There is no super glue super enough. No wish mighty enough and no prayer answered to fill that complete, and utter, emptiness you feel.

'Cheer up mate it might never happen", only it has. 'It's another day tomorrow' means it's yet another bloody day, and you begin to realise that worse things happen on dry land, and not at sea.

Single at Seventy is a curse. With the sands of your time sifting away, the final end coming closer, you know that this is, in fact, it. Single at Seventy means single for the rest of your pathetic, and now to be always lonely, life. She, who departed, has turned out to be your judge, jury and executioner.