The Thinking Other Woman

Well ... ten days left and the astrological tsunami is all over.

I see NO evidence whatsoever that I'll ever see this person again, so that's the end. Aaaaaaaand ... I'm an old lady!!!


By the time you're over fifty, all the times that felt like the major period of action in your life are at least ten years ago. I had to drive a couple of times to parts of town that, when I was dating my late husband and during the brief time I had with the person this site is about, I worked up there and had club meetings up there and I practically lived up there.


Now, it's been some eighteen years since some of those times, and three years since I even went to those meetings anymore. I drive those streets and it's strange because I'm snapped back into being that young person who was meeting the loves of her life and dreaming about getting married, and all those old jobs I had then ... and now they were years and years ago and I'm fat and old and tired.


Because I had to go to a Lowe's up there, I was close to a wonderful Pho restaurant I used to eat at a lot. It was interesting because this Pho restaurant spawned others out of town where I used to go for work, and then ... I'd eat at the same Pho restaurant! And I haven't been to one in ages. It made me sad because he used to like Pho too, and he had a favorite one he'd lunch at with friends from work. Once upon a time, I thought we would eat Pho together and talk, and it never happened. I'm very sorry that the companionship we could have enjoyed isn't going to happen now. But it's not, and that's the end.


I am now an old lady. I don't have the body or the energy or the dreams I had then. Pretty much everything that's going to be important in my life has already occurred. Nothing else much is going to happen now. All I'm going to do is go to work, try to get bills paid down, and take care of the house. Once these renovations are done, all I have to do is keep the place clean and watch the world go by. 


I'm not going to be a fiction writer. I'm not going to be much of any kind of writer, really. There are no more close relationships, and I'm not looking for any more. I'm spending the rest of my life alone. Once upon a time, this used to be unthinkable, and now I don't even care. I understand that old people, alone in the nursing home like my great aunt, just sit by themselves, and that's where I am now ... sitting by myself. I'll do it for a while longer here, and then when I fall and break a hip, or get diagnosed with my cancer or my heart attack or my dementia or whatever I'm going to eventually die from and I can't take care of myself anymore, I'll be sitting by myself somewhere else. 


And that's about it. My life is over. And I don't really have the energy to do all that stuff anymore anyway, so I don't really care.


One thing about an extramarital affair is, unless you are the cheated-on, you can't talk about it to anyone. People don't understand, they do not approve, and they don't want to hear about it. They think you are a horrible person, so if you are messed up over it for a number of years ... you're going to be alone for a number of years, because the thing that's most important to you, you can't share with anyone.


I've been alone for so long, I don't even miss having anyone to talk to anymore. I just go along watchng movies or tapping out Medium pieces, and that's all there is. I get used to just sitting out on the porch and enjoying the day, and that's all there is ever going to be now.


At least the nursing home I'll likely end up in has screened-in porches.


It sure is weird. Here I thought I was going to have some big life, and all I am is a stupid little old fat woman in a tiny, simple little life, who doesn't even have any energy for all that crap anymore, and who knows it was all crap anyway.

Interesting to think that all there is to do now is look back on what was your life, since now you're old and you don't really have one anymore.


All old people do is sit and think, once they're old enough.