dating widowers

On Writing That Book


Writing

A couple of wonderful women I know via my traveling Twitter are going through some tough times. They are both writers. One recently suffered a Lupus related TIA and the other has sadly suffered another setback with cancer. Despite the difficulties, they write on. The latter, a NASA physicist, has a book in progress. Her latest scans show more cancer. It’s in the bone now. I, unfortunately, know what that means for her, and she made the comment in her last blog entry that it was time for her to quit procrastinating and finish her book.

Procrastination and writing are almost synonyms. I know some folks who write to the exclusion of all but breathing, but I have never been blessed with such nose-grinding attributes. However, I have been thinking. A lot. About going back to book writing full-time.

With the yoga studio closing at the end of June and my growing disaffection for cause and current event blogging making it difficult for me to muster interest in my paying gig, thoughts turned back toward the memoir and writing “that book”. Or rather, finishing it.

I am still stymied by theme. You don’t just write a book about a section of your life for no reason even if it seems like that is precisely what memoirists do. As more than one literary agent, author and indie publisher has pointed out – an author should have a point.

What’s my point?

A happy ending is not good enough.

Well, okay, it’s pretty darn good from the personal perspective but why should anyone other than my children or Rob really care about what got he and I from A to B?

More than once, it’s been observed that ours is a compelling story and that I have, on occasion, represented it well in words.

That I can write isn’t at issue, nor is the fact that people love a good happily ever after love story. What I am still searching for is an angle. The hook. What’s my hook?

Widowers, let’s face it, are hot these days. Can’t throw a stone without hitting one in film, books, or television. There is something more compelling about a man who’s lost his spouse than there is about a woman in the same predicament. Probably because  a single woman/mom is considered so dime a dozen in North America that they practically wallpaper daily life.

And men make tragic figures whereas women are just victims. Who loves a victim?

No one.

But, getting back to my pondering. I have been. I even have the makings of a plan. The universe knows I have a book.

I don’t want to look back and wonder what it would have been like had I just gone ahead and done it. Published. I don’t want to regret it from a standpoint of having run out of time. The image of poor old Ulysses S. Grant banging out his memories in the last cancer ravaged months of his life to save his family from poverty has always struck me as the saddest way to leave life, desperate and down-trodden and in despair.

I’ve spent the last four years learning to write. Well. It’s time to do something with all the free words I’ve given away in the pursuit of my voice.

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No One Believes Her


A lateral Xray demonstrating prevertebral soft...

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Not the emergency room staff or the policeman who they called.

“Your car doesn’t have a scratch on it,” he told her. “Are you sure it was a car accident that caused your injuries?”

That’s the question she’s been asked over and over. And over and over she’s lied.

L1 and 2 fractures, whiplash and a bruise that covers the soft tissue just above her wrist like a gladiator’s arm band.

Pneumonia set in. Oxygen rate plummeted to 60%. Her lips turned blue. And still she lied.

He hovered around the nurses’ station demanding that only he be allowed to make medical decision for her and that only he be contacted in case of emergency. The nurses’ suspicions confirmed.

He took her home on Tuesday when no one from the family offered to take her in. She cried, but still lied.

“We’ll see what happens, “Mom said.

“He’ll kill her next time is what will happen,” I replied. Or if she’s not that lucky, cripple her more than he has.

She won’t work again. The doctor told her it’s unlikely given the injury. She’s not quite 43.

No one believes her and I thinks she knows this, but she can’t quit or walk away because she’s submerged in the idiotic notion that love should be complicated or it’s not real. That the more awful – the more love. That men who treat you like crap just need more understanding, sympathy. That if you can just can’t a little more abuse – verbal, emotional, physically – he will finally see your worth and repay your persistence with the same level of love.

I’ve been reading about the plight of the woman dating the widowed man. It’s bad romance ala the Louisiana trailer park.

“I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” Translation? “I appreciate that you hang on and have sex with me but I am looking for someone who is not you and I will leave you for her the moment I find her. And I did warn you.”

Men who love you don’t hit you. They don’t make you cry. They don’t keep pictures of their dead wives on the night table, knowing that it creeps you out and makes you doubt yourself. They don’t play word games or mind games or take frequent “potty breaks” from you.

Men who love you don’t string you along. They don’t insist that “marriage is just a piece of paper and our love is beyond that” when they know you are only agreeing to keep from losing them. They don’t let their friends or family mistreat you and they defend your goodness and honor. They chose you in all situations

Men who love you show it. It’s in their tone and their eyes and their touch. Always.

She lied again. He took her home to that FEMA double wide reject off a cornfield in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin where no one will hear what happens next.

Which should be just about the time we arrive if history counts for anything.

The Exception


We watched a romcom over the weekend based on a dating/relationship book that sprung from a cutesy (but very true) line on an episode of Sex and The City, which I never saw. Based on the rather roundabout route the idea for this movie took from conception to the big screen, the likelihood of it being anything more than a time suck that steals hours from one’s life was rather small, and the premise itself ensured that it would be more sadly true than funny. But I found a few things worth pondering hidden between the painful reminders of what it is like to be single/unmarried when you would rather not be.

1) That the idea of soulmates should not be taught to our children – our daughters especially. One of the story lines followed a young woman determinedly pursuing a married man based on the faulty  idea that one can simply find the person you were meant to be with (who means for this to be is never made clear or even discussed) via chance and regardless of whether this person is already in a relationship, the universe will bend to your greater destiny.

This is, of course, bullshit. Sure, the characters (and probably you too) can recite anecdotal stories of two people meeting while married/committed to others, running off and living happily ever after for decades together. But as a male character points out at one point in the movie – they are exceptions in a world where nearly everyone is always the rule.

2) Which brings me to the “rules”. We allow our teens and young adults to teach each other how to date/mate, and most of what they have to say to each other is wrong and reinforces nonsense and fantasy.

3) Living together is not the path to marriage for most couples and there are very few couples who forego marriage completely who go on to live out their days together (and please don’t remind me of the handful of rather public figures who buck this trend – they are exceptions and most people are rules. In your real life, how many common-law couples of decades do you know? I know three and two are same-sex and don’t have the marriage option – they would be married if they did.)

4) The reason most people are single is that they believe the chase has something to do with love. It doesn’t. If it’s love, there is no chase. Or they confuse what the movie calls “the spark” with real feelings.

5) If someone is “into you”, they are always available, kind, concerned and interested. They are never too busy. They call back, show up and generally can’t see or hear from you enough. That’s actually what being the “exception” is. It’s too bad that it’s so difficult for so many to understand that being this kind of “exception” is better.

This is what I have learned:

  • Know what you want.
  • Ask for it.
  • Walk away when you don’t get it.
  • Trust that in doing so you are opening yourself for someone who gets you as you are.

You can be the “exception” if you remember that the “rules” as played by most people are not interested in promoting long-lasting, healthy relationships.