My head moves from one song to another and I think about the changes that are coming not knowing if it is going to be heartache, hope or combinations of both.
The boys ask if there are women from the past that we could have married and ask why I haven’t answered.
“What difference does it make? That was then and this is now. Maybe I was smarter than she was or maybe she was smarter than me.”
“That is a clever way of not answering the question. What is your answer?”
“Read the letter I wrote.”
“What letter?”
“Oh, you don’t know about the letter, guess you won’t know what I wrote.”
“Give me a hypothetical answer.”
“Hypothetically speaking there were a few who talked about it that never had a chance. I don’t have a single regret. And there might have been one who could have, but realistically there are probably a 1000 women who could have filled the role. It is logical, out of billions there has to be more than one.
But there isn’t time or reason to make yourself crazy that way or to believe you are one and done with no hope of change assuming you want it.”
Women Aren’t Like Cars
I don’t want to tell you how long it took to buy the car yesterday other than to say I walked away feeling very good about the deal.
“What does that have to do with the question?”
“Women aren’t like cars. You can’t pull up Edmunds or Consumer Reports and research the different models and use that information to try and make and educated decision about the best one to pick up for a partner/mother/lover etc.
You have to go with a gut feeling based upon time with her and conversation not knowing how you or her will be changed by life.
There are no guarantees or ways to predict with the sort of accuracy you can with certain brands and models. It is a crap shoot for them and us.”
Not everyone agrees but not everyone disagrees either. It is the benefit of speaking with men in our fifties, we have lived, loved and lost.
Some are widowers, some are divorced and some are still married.
Later on the phone will ring and two of us will dig in deeper and he’ll ask why I seem to have put so much though into this.
“I am a writer and a thinker. I have had reason and occasion to go deep and consider the how and why. If you can’t tap into sense of loss and heartache from losing a real love you can’t write about the other side either.
You need to write about what happens when heroes fail and the things that come after.It is more human, more realistic and more interesting or so I think.
It ties into everything in one way or another.”
He asks what I have published and if it has been read.
“Bits and pieces and some of it has been read. Some is just out there waiting like a stuffed animal that once was a favorite but no longer is of the same interest.”
Someone wrote me about this post and asked if I was trying to get attention and I told them I don’t have to try to get attention.
I can get it any time I want it without effort.
I didn’t bother to read the response because I don’t care.
There is an unread email sitting in the inbox of the first email that was set up in the days when one might have used the term newlywed.
It was some ridiculous Qanon type lies about election fraud and general stupidity that technically wasn’t directed at me.
But send something to a shared inbox and there is no guarantee who will reply.
I signed my name so there would be no misunderstanding who wrote what and because I said I won’t push out crap from unknown writers with facts I haven’t validate and or can’t support.
Think of it as the end of an election ad with candidate XYZ saying they approve the message.
The other fellow suggested my response was false and that I ought to look at the facts or something like that. I suggested he stop sucking on the tail pipe of cars while reading conspiracy theories so that he might be able discern truth from fiction.
Added a couple of other niceties and told him his response wouldn’t be read because no one has time nor interest to stick their head inside the mental ward. Lay on a sick bed and you’ll eventually get sick.
Anyhoo, that particular member of lollipop land responded quickly but I can’t tell you what was said because it wasn’t opened nor will it ever be.
Won’t lie and say I didn’t hope the lack of response aggravated him and that I have free rent in his head but don’t care much either way.
Mostly wondered why college educated people let themselves fall for something so easily proven false.
It is all narishkeit and I am making an effort to engage less and participate less with narishkeit. I make no promises other than I sense the coming changes and recognize I can’t meet it as I once was.
Has to be who I am leading in to who I am becoming and that is ok. Evolution leads to revolution or something like that.
