Here I am, at 75 years old, starting a new chapter in my life. I think I’ve earned the right to have the life I want now: the right to be the ‘me’ I want to be. Yes, I’m a senior citizen, but I am not willing to sit quietly by and wait on the Grim Reaper to come for me. My brain and my body are made to be used. I was not born old nor irrelevant. I know my body looks more like an Ambrosia apple than the Hour Glass it once was. I still have dreams for my life. George Burns, who lived to be 100 years old, said, “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old”.

My husband has been gone for almost nine years and I no longer just an extension of him. I was that for many years, now it’s my time. And I find my libido is in high gear! 

Being a widow who actually loved her husband, I had a hard time losing my widows-weeds. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me to wither on the vine (what little vine I have left to live). Many women of my generation have never lived independent lives. I left my parents’ home and moved into my husband’s home. Being on my own was a whole new world for me. At times I felt so isolated, so alone. But, I had been so dependent on my husband and our life together. I’ve changed my life, because face it, I couldn’t continue being the wife of a dead man. After 48 years of being a dutiful wife, and all the services that entails, I have found I do not miss the service part! The man, I do miss; but cleaning up after him; ironing his shirts so he always looks neat and cared for; cooking his favorite foods. I served him with love, but it was still service!

And, don’t you know, just about the time I decide to start living again, a horrible pandemic strikes the Earth! Well, it’s not as bad as the pandemic of the Black Death in the 1300s, with its 15% survival rate (but I would always want to be in that tiny sliver of survivors)! What’s a silver-haired senior to do?

I haven’t dated since I was a teenager, and I am not quite sure how this is supposed to go, in this new millennium. Oh, I’ve been asked out, but…I have a problem with ugly. I can’t sit across the dinner table from someone I can’t stand the sight of! Or ride to dinner with that person. Yeah, I know what you are thinking: “Who does she think she is to have such a high opinion of herself? Lots of men wouldn’t want to sit across from her!” Maybe, but when you were married to a handsome man for almost half a century, it’s hard to lower the bar! So, think what you like, it’s my life.