Getting Started

So here I am about two weeks from my 51st birthday. More than a year ago I started receiving letters from AARP encouraging me to join. I have successfully avoided membership - I just can't do ir!

After all I am not a "retired person" and at the rate things are going I don't know that I will ever have the privilege of being a "retired person". But more importantly joining AARP means that I would need to accept that I am "of a certain age". I am generally not overly concerned about my age but somehow being a member of a group based purely on my age is just a step I am not ready to take.

Despite my avoidance of AARP I cannot escape my reality. I am almost 51 and I am single. To give you some background I have been single since 2004 after my 21 year marriage ended unexpectedly (well, at least unexpected for me!) Actually I can't believe I have been single for this long.

Its been an interesting ride for me. I had never seen myself someone who would be single. I loved being married, so some how I thought I would find myself on that path again.

In the past 7 years I have gone through the various post-divorce stages - you know, anger, grief, remorse, recklessness, serial dating and some other stuff I don't know I want to admit to at this stage.

I have always had this theory that if you end a serious relationship, you have a window of "opportunity" during which you are vulnerable enough to be open to a relationship. You haven't quite gotten to the point where you feel confident on your own, so you are more likely to "let" someone into your life. When this vulnerability window closes, it becomes more and more difficult to let anyone in.

Some of us miss or almost miss this window, or we see it and let it close, or even close it ourselves. In my case I think I saw the window opening and I thought I had more time, and when I looked again it was closed.

I don't want you to think this has been a sad and miserable time for me. After the initial crying, sobbing, gnashing of teeth, I have had some really good times. What I have found is that this is a journey, as is life in general, and there are peaks and valleys and some really dark alleys, and depending on how you look at this, it can be at worst, a learning experience and at best, a wild and fun ride.

And this is what this blog will be about, the journey of being single and senior! The good and the bad, and hopefully along the way we will have some good laughs.