Anisette Studio

It’s a smirky kind of day! The sun is not shining; it is snowing instead. A day to be inside until it is time to clear the car off and clean the steps. Have that other cup of coffee which will drain the pot, and you won’t waste the flavor. I like coffee that taste like coffee, black mostly and organic! I use a carafe and boil my water in an electric kettle. There is something very pleasant about doing so. My favorite cup has a drawing made by my granddaughter, who helped to choose the message on the cup. It reads: “Creativity is Power, I love you!” Creativity is using power! Whether it is writing or art, or something else you love to do. I came this way! And so, this is what I do.

I have had chunks of time where I was not being creative in the ways I love. I was being creative as a mother mostly. This made me think a lot about the world, and what I wanted the world to be like for my children. Then a messy marriage ended and so what I thought would never happen, happened and I was not the full time Mom. What to do about me was the big question when I was not mothering. The story of what happened to “us” is not a part of these thoughts. I am exploring the me beyond being the mother. A most serious endeavor.

Women are many things. Being a mother is one of those things. But who else are we? We are people who wear many hats! These “hats” go on and off all the time! Being the in-place hands on mother last for about 18 years. A big chunk of time, and in the mix, you get to be you here and there. Your wife, mother, friend with other people, an auntie? The taxicab driver, the psychologist, the nurse, the counselor, the____. Any mother gets this!

And then one day when kids are grown and underway with their own lives. There you are. You sit back with your coffee and say, “What now?” Perhaps this question is asked even as you have done both work and mothering. Where you were the one doing both work and maintaining the home, teach children how to grow up and be responsible. Then its poof. I think it is good to have that job, as long as you like it.

The thing is if you don’t like it. How do you dare to pivot and become something you want to be? Women who want to be responsible for their lives find it hard to think about pivoting, and often doing so is scary because change feels uncertain. Life can force you to pivot, however. Such as with my husband Thomas dying. Children growing up make us look at the relationship we are in. Can we become together now? Can this new journey towards what comes next be something we embrace together? Yes! Of course! But not always is the answer.

Being single again seems scary no matter how you arrive at it. Depending on where you are at, the age you are_____. Well, any scenario feels unsettling. I began to think of how long “people may live” after Tom died. How long a life I might live more to the point. The truth is people die not just because they are older, people die under all kinds of circumstances. Health, accidents, etc. The point is the quality of the life lived.

Staying in a relationship because your scared is not good enough. Suddenly becoming single? That raises the question of what is good enough too. For me? I changed my position, a lot of shit happened, but I met the love of my life! And now I am single again, but older. What I want out of life now is different than when I was younger and having my life change. So many things happened, and those things were hard, some things very hard. But I pushed past.

What’s it like to be older and single? The same as it when my first husband and I divorced! I knew what was not working and I learned I could be in control of what I did want. Taking control and not giving into fears. Making use of what I do know. Becoming, over coming, and not letting age be a barricade. It’s time to shine! Time to strut my stuff! Who’s stopping me? It was my self. So, you may not be physically fit. There are ways around that, and you can improve on that. You do need to be able. Never give in, find what it is you can do! Dress every day looking your best and face the world without pigeonholing the self. Painting yourself into a corner___. It doesn’t matter how you say it. Become healthy, and don’t act your age. Reinvent who you are as you want to be. If the rest of the world sees you as being a certain way, it’s because you fall into that trap. Let them get used of you as you want to be! Notice that people notice people who have learned that what you look like doesn’t matter. They notice what you do, and what your like. And they say, “I want to be like that!” I recall a 91-year-old lady whom I came to love! Her name was Carrie and she embraced like, and she did not see herself as old. She did not stop doing the things she loved, everyone loved who she was.

This is just me thinking about my life. Somewhere in the mix people will identify with things. May it help you think of how older people are. The body is an outer shell. Inside I am as young as I feel. I want my life to be interesting, and good. I want to have the kind of zest for living I always did.

Do I need to be in a relationship to be me? No, but I enjoyed Tom’s male energy and I miss that. I don’t want to be a caregiver again to someone whom I might come to love who that person is. That’s scary. Being a friend to someone makes more sense.

I don’t want to get entangled in something that consumes my time and energy that is like the craziness of younger years. But if you come to love someone?____

I am not certain what a relationship can be at 70 something. I am not looking. I can’t imagine one. This is where single older people’s heads are at. What I can do is be more of me. I can embrace life. Make friends. I can learn what life can become. I want to meet my needs. I am not afraid to explore what life is like because it can change. I can change.

Best wishes!