The Single Girl Dines Out

Things about being single

I enjoy the freedom of being single and the fact that I am accountable to no one but God, myself and my mother. One of the things I’ve noticed with couples is that as much as they say they are able to do whatever they want with their money, time and so forth, the fact is that if they are having a successful relationship and are any sort of decent human being they definitely do have to consult someone before doing anything significant in their lives. I don’t have to consult with anyone if I decide I want to change jobs, fly to Europe or paint my bedroom fuchsia. These things tend to get a partner excited, especially fuchsia.

However there are downsides to the single state, one of the biggest being that despite this being 2009, single people are social outcasts. Until recently I can pretty much count on one hand the amount of dinner invitations I have received in the last 35 years to a couple’s home. It’s only been in the last couple of years that I have actually been invited to a sit-down dinner with married friends. Even my sister has tended to exclude me from formal dinner parties. I honestly don’t think it is because there was any fear of my walking off with a stray husband or two. I think it was mostly because what do you do with a single female when there isn’t a partner for the husband to talk with? Heaven knows the husband has no interest in talking to some woman!(?) In other words, I really don’t have a clue why I have never been invited but I know I am not an oddball because other single females have experienced the same exclusion.

I have not ventured out very often for a solitary meal in a restaurant but I remember years ago one memorable evening I thought I would try it and went as wild as to order custard for dessert because I had read about custard in Agatha Christie. Not only was the custard disappointingly cold when I was expecting hot, the ambience of sitting alone over dinner was equally cold and dismal! More recently I tried the experiment when I travelled to England on my own. Let me tell you after the first night I was pretty fed up with my own company. So I thought I would be daring and bold so I psyched myself up to invite the next single person I saw in a restaurant to join me at my table. In the next 3 weeks I didn’t see another single person the whole length and breadth of England! As it turned out I was travelling during a vacation time for the school kids so there went my bravery and any chance of being a forward hussy!

However after braving England alone I have felt much more valiant back home and have had a couple of lovely evenings enjoying a fancy restaurant here in Calgary. Timing is everything I suppose but I seem to ge a lot of attention from the waiters if I go at the early sitting. It isn’t the greatest experience perhaps but the more I do it the more comfortable I get.

So next time you see a lone woman smiling to herself over a glass of wine, give her a thumbs up because she has stepped outside her comfort zone and dares to enjoy herself alone.

Where do we go from age 56?

When is old age, old? Is 60 the limbo years between middle and old age?

I woke up one day last week and realized that in 4 years I will be 60 years old. It seemed incredible and completely unrelated to me. Sixty. 60. Sixty years old! Me. I had a mild crisis when I turned the ripe old age of 25, panicked that I was still single. After that I’ve just cruised along, pretty much thinking that age “is relative”, “it’s how young you feel, not how old you are” and every other cliché one has heard about the age factor. But I practically sat up in bed with a jolt when I began to think about turning 60. I had been discussing retirement strategies with my brother, friends, mother, pretty much anyone who would listen but for some ridiculous reason I was not connecting retirement with actually turning 60.

So what can I say for myself at the tender age of 56? Sometimes I try to tell myself that I have lived an interesting life, and when I get on the topic of “lawyers I have known” it sounds sort of like a female JR Ewing meets Flamingo Road. In other words, that’s a topic for another day. Suffice to say, I have had moments in my life that people might find interesting – why else would I be writing this blog? But when I think of turning 60 I must admit that I have some trepidation. Will I suddenly turn into an old lady and start wearing flowered hats and string pearls? Will I look stupid in a jogging outfit? Am I no longer allowed to say “fuck”? Should I start going to church? Will I say goodbye to Spanx and hello to girdles? (I won’t stretch the imagination to corsets but just so you know, my grandmother actually wore corsets and my little brother used to pull the hooks together for her – again, that’s for another story).

What should a person turning 60 have accomplished in life? Well, right off the bat I can scratch off husband and kids. That was never my role(s) in life. Not that I hadn’t wanted them but the right guy never came along (or something!)

I’ve had a varied career albeit in the office administration field. I’ve worked in a livestock office, insurance offices, construction outfit, furniture backrooms, charity office, law offices, engineering and oil and gas, my own family-owned ventures, car dealerships, pretty much you can name it and I’ve done it when it comes to sharpening pencils, banging on typewriters (oh excuse me, keyboards) organizing files, creating files, organizing bosses and teams, executing workplans. And if I do say so myself, I am darned good at it. But somehow it all falls flat, tame, pretty lukewarm when it stacks up to 60 years.

Okay, I can also insert that I was a federal candidate in the 1993 election. The year when there was a virtual blackout when it came to the NDP party. The Reform party steamrolled over everything and the media lapped them up. Embraced them. Pretty much went down on their knees and begged them to screw them in the ass, several times over. (me bitter?)

The trouble is that we have celebrity thrown in our face every blooming day, whether it is via television, radio, newspapers or magazines which force a thinking person to ask themselves what are they doing with their lives? I have questioned myself a lot on this subject, partly stemming from an interview of Eunice and Maria Shriver on Oprah some years ago. Maria went on about how her parents pressed her brothers and herself to always push on with a new project and not sit on their laurels. They were also taught to “give back”. It all sounded so positive and high minded but when I thought about it I felt that it was easy for them to say that when they didn’t have to struggle to pay their mortgage on a single income, lose their jobs more than once and essentially have no life outside of work. That has been my lot for the last 15 years – losing our business, losing 2 other jobs, then commuting to a different city to get work which has taken up a minimum of 15 hours of my day, 5 days a week. On top of that I lost a niece and a father and have been a prop to my mother and family for10 years. And I don’t begrudge that at all, I feel that I am all about family. But where does that leave me with “giving back’ to the community? I asked that of a girlfriend and her comment was that caring for an elderly parent was a form of giving back. I thought that was an astute observation and I embraced that philosophy. A nice way of letting myself off the hook.

So what is really expected of a 60 year old? I think perhaps the ultimate is to have a true sense of one’s being. That one should be happy with oneself and the life they are leading at this point because it is pretty much downhill from this hilltop. Not that it has to be – I definitely hope that at 60 I will still be learning and be up to the challenge of enjoying a variety of new experiences. I hope that I will be financially free to travel a little, enjoy some simple pleasures around the province and country, enjoy quality time with family and friends, study and read a lot and put what I learn into practice, especially if it involves my garden and house. I hope I will be rich in memories and have the health to create even more memories. I certainly don’t wish to be nostalgic or be looking over my shoulder at what might have been. I want to live each day to the fullest. And just be plain old happy. And I think that would be great at the tender age of 56 too!

Bottom line – I say bring it on, I am up to the challenge!