Last week I turned 74. Let me tell you, that was quite the shocker – the number and the reality of being in my mid-70’s. When I was much younger, in my 30’s and even into my 40’s, I would try to imagine what it would be like to be in my 70’s. I would think about how old my children would be – all in their 40’s with lives of their own. It was hard for me to grasp what that future might look or be like once I got there.
When I turned 70, I was near the end of a four-decade marriage. My husband had dementia, our lives had become smaller and more restricted and turning 70 was almost an afterthought. Two of my girlfriends gave me a beautiful dinner at my favorite restaurant, but the enjoyment of the birthday, the dinner and the milestone was tempered by the reality of life. I was not happy nor in a good place.
A month after I turned 71 my husband died. As the months passed, I wrote about being in the “in-between,” a place in my life where I had no idea what sort of future awaited me. I wrote about losing more of my friends, friends my age, facing the fact that life really does have a terminus. I settled into a routine – walking with a girlfriend three times a week, taking my dog to the dog park each day, watching tv, learning to do things by myself. I contemplated moving to a town where one of my adult children lived, even to the point of retaining a realtor there. But inertia kept me from doing anything other than look.
I dated some – you know that online dating that seems to be the way people meet nowadays. But, after two years of widowhood I had decided that another relationship was just not going to happen. The men were “nice”, but they either had too much baggage, or there was no attraction, or both. I accepted my aloneness and I was fine with it.
Then, I met Dennis. Online, while I was trying to disengage from the Our Time dating site. He had put a 15-mile radius on women he wanted to meet, and I had a 35-mile radius on men I wanted to meet. Dennis and I lived 470 miles apart. Somehow, and I know it had to be a Higher Power, we matched and began to talk.
In retrospect, I know my adult children thought I had lost my mind because Dennis and I moved so quickly. But we both were widowed, and we both knew that the Divine had brought us together. In our 70’s there was no time to waste the gift that we had been given.
So, now I am 74. I am putting down roots in a Virginia coastal town, far removed from my North Carolina mountains that I love so much. I have become involved in a local university. Dennis and I have found a small group of social friends, and I hope that some of those people will evolve into even deeper friendships. Yes, I miss my mountains, and I am still homesick, but I also know I am blessed to have found the man who, unknown to me, I had waited for my entire life.
New roots. Growing in a new place, reminding me that age is just a number, and that there is plenty of life yet to be lived and enjoyed.