sexiles and other atrocities of aging (ungracefully)

It's a Saturday night, and well, I passed up the chance to go out, or rather, I chose to go home to an empty house, in lieu of a night on the town... it matters very little, I think. I feel old.

P. the married boyfriend of a friend of mine stopped in to see K., and there I was. He was a lovely man. Warm, funny. 47, but he looked like he wasn't a day over 35. We giggled like children, the three of us, and K. kept feeding us all licorice. Last week, with Perlita, I learned the word, for a second time, in Spanish, regaliz, as useful a term as any other to file away, I suppose.

When I was a child, I hated anise, so much so that I could discern its presence in a pasta sauce and reject it. For the same reason, I hated licorice. But now, something has changed in me, something fundamental, and I am not speaking of the anise here... Once upon a time I hated sharing my space. I wanted privacy, and a single room. I managed to have a single all through college, never suffered the humiliation of being "sexiled," that is, locked out of my bedroom so that a roommate could get her rocks off. Of course, to be honest, there was far less sex going on, through most of my college career than anyone would logically believe. Now living alone just feels empty.

So P. and I commiserate, over beer and other sundry nerve-calming agents, about our lack of sex. It is neither here, nor there, I think. But more there, than here? You need a new boyfriend, K. had insisted, coaxing me out of the house when all I wanted to do was lay naked in my bed and stare at the ceiling. Why does my skin hurt? I wonder. Why does it feel like I could just stop breathing and it wouldn't change a thing?

I have work, but my work seems so unimportant, and I miss my child, and she misses me, and I will be travelling again soon, to see her, but it won't be enough. My house is empty, and I think that the term "sexile" should also refer to those who willingly shut themselves off from the world. Then, I'd have to include myself. The self-imposed celibacy is starting to grate on my nerves. And I ponder several points of dating, at which I have absolutely no skill. Dating. Right. I am told that people who are lonely do that sort of thing, only, I'm not precisely lonely, that is, if you can think of lonely as being a desire to be with others in general, as opposed to a specified set of others. I like solitude, I swear it up and down, but I don't really mean it. I am just picky about my company, and I know very quickly whether I will be interested or not. Or perhaps I don't understand people enough to want to risk too much, or anything at all? It is a tennis match, you serve, I return the volley. Then the ball dies, in the middle of your court or mine, and then what? When a man, unsolicited gives you his phone number, isn't that a sign that he wants to communicate further? I don't understand the rules, I guess, don't recognize the difference between the service of a ball, and the smashing close to a play. 40-love. I lose before I begin. I stop picking up the ball, when it isn't returned I just walk away. Maybe it is pride, or a deep sense of boredom.

When someone wants to see you, they simply do it. It is that easy. When they don't, the effort isn't there. M. insisted last week, over coffee. She must be right. I understand this intellectually, but I am, by nature, an enabler, so it takes training to not forgive people, to not accept excuses. I get several apologies, on a regular basis, from a cast of regulars. "Sorry, I didn't have enough time." "Sorry, I haven't started, but I am about to." "Sorry, I promise to get back to you with a sort of response you deserve." "Sorry, are you angry with me, why have you stopped writing?" "Sorry, I don't give enough of a shit to actually exert myself, but I'd hate for you to stop making an effort just because I am too self-involved to care."

I sigh. And write letters to a few of them. After all, there is a public to entertain. The taste of disappointment isn't unfamiliar to me, but it mostly is a self-generated flavor. K. suggests that I just call someone for sex. Once a week servicing, she insists. Nah. I reply, not worth it. I only half believe myself, but mostly, it is because the people she ticks off a list are of no interest or use to me (and because once a week would not remotely be enough to compensate the effort exerted). The others are in remote corners of the world. It shouldn't be that hard, I remind myself. But I am no longer in that country, where men have no problem capitalizing on a hoarse voice to tell you that it is sexy, or to let their hand linger on your knee while they ask about your next novel. I am in this country, where fear and propriety abound, and no one takes risks anymore (including me) because it is more important to uphold the guise of completeness, the farse of a successful career, the sham of a marriage that is nothing more than a list of complex co-dependencies (this was more P.'s discourse than mine, I'll admit). And I wonder if the fear of aging alone is really worth years of misery that end in, well, aloneness, and where people with actual courage might be found. So I look in the mirror, because, after all, despite my faults (which are many), no one can accuse me of cowardice. And no, perhaps bravery won't protect me from loneliness, but at least I can let myself love without fear. Because there is tomorrow, and the next day, and there are no guarantees, no matter how we feel today, but it is worth it, it is worth it, to live today, fully, to not cloak ourselves in a veil of non-sensation, for the sole sake of avoiding pain. I repeat this, like a mantra, to numb myself today, with cold toes and fingers, and no one to rub my back. It'll get better. It has to.