Women After 40 - here we are

I met a woman tonight at the bar who has just been divorced after 21 years of marriage, two mostly grown kids, and she's talking about having a baby. I know why she's talking about having a baby, because I talked about it too, for a while. We all do. Hit your forties, hit the kids growing up, the men have left for younger pastures, and what exactly do you do with yourself? If, like me, like her, like a lot of my friends, you started having kids in your teens and early twenties, you have no fucking idea. It's the first time in your adult life that you've been without kids to care for, a husband to take care of and . . .what? What do you do? I told her to get a puppy. It's the same as a damn baby only the time frame is less. No, I told her a lot of other things too: mostly: there is light at the end of the tunnel. And there is. A strange light, maybe, but light.

She said that she was afraid of becoming one of those women who are so self reliant that they don't want or need men.

Hello, I said, I am one of those women. And I'm happier than I have ever been in my life before. So don't knock it, sister, until you've tried it. Not that I wouldnt' take a man, because I would, but what I am now is picky to the nth degree, and it's serving me well. When/if I find a guy - it will be right.

Add this to the whispered menopause conversation I had earlier (upshot: menopause comes when you're not having regular sex: I'm not, therefore the odd perimenopausal shit I'm getting at 42, my friend T is having it regularly, thus she is just getting a few symptoms at 46. Life is unfair to the utterly single. Big surprise, that.)

And here I am: I went to eharmony tonight out of mad boredom and they told me, after 45 minutes of filling out their damn quiz, that they couldn't help me. 1/5 of the people who try eharmony are hopeless, they said. It's nothing to do with you, it's just that you're unmatchable. HA! I have heard the stories that they're actually Xtian creeps, now it's confirmed. There were tons of questions about my beliefs and observances, which basically add up to a bunch of odd semi Wiccan vaguely Buddhist things (don't walk under ladders, bless your new home with salt, spring water and garlic, keep an amethyst crystal in your glove compartment and one on your computer, relax all grip on possessions, this too shall pass and nothing really matters) - and there didn't seem to be a line item for those. There were a lot of questions about going to church. I used to go to Friends meeting in Baltimore when the kids were small: it was a blessed hour of silence. Then I got sucked into making Simple Lunch, and once they figured out how good I was at it, it was all over. Generally that's been my church experience: whoa, you can cook? And cater? And will?

Or maybe it was the part where I admitted to smoking & drinking heavily. Anyway, eharmony has disowned me firmly. I am proud.