I was at a July 4th party, and it was a fun event. We ate, drank and watched fireworks. In the past I always put in an appearance but didn’t overstay my welcome. This time I went to the party and stayed until it started breaking up after 11 PM, which makes me officially a partygoer. Anything after 10 o’clock is considered eligible.
For years I eschewed social events, mostly due to a combination of the way people respond to newcomers like me, and my own self-doubt. As a bullying survivor who has spent a long adult life still fighting to overcome prejudices on others’ sides and learned avoidance behavior on my own, it’s not easy to take those steps outside the sanctuary of home. More so now than ever before, because we have spent years in isolation and some of us are not going back to anything resembling a workplace environment to cultivate those social vines that keep the plant thriving.
For most of the time during this party, I was at the table with some of the ladies closer to my age or older than me. As I listened to their stories, recollections and humorous side notes, I began to feel the familiar pangs of outsider guilt begin to overcome me. I kept quiet and observed so as not to ruin the give and take of the conversation, but I quickly realized that, as usual, I didn’t have much in common with the rest of the folks at the table.
These were women whose histories included long-lived marriages with overseas vacations and memories of children and grandchildren (and their marriages), along with some folks damaged by multiple marriages and divorces, or stranded in the wasteland of widowhood.
The not-by choice single women who were living in elderly communities spoke of actually being hit upon by the widowers and bachelors there. This is something I’m not used to. For a second I remembered a scene in the movie Jaws in which fisherman Quint and scientist Hooper compared scars on their bodies, as the two of them were into sharks and had wounds to prove it. The third man out, police chief Brody, only had an appendix scar, considered it for a moment, then chose not to mention it. At that moment I thought, gee, I can’t get a guy to hit on me for any reason, but kept it to myself.
They talked of their adult children’s latest job successes and recent trips to exotic places. The best I could do was say I had never been to those destinations and keep listening. How does one just pack up and go to faraway Jibbip? How does one who doesn’t have kids or a spouse go about it? How do you survive going on a trip with a spouse and kids?
Anyway, so I was there with the other ladies, some of whom had a whole third of a century of life more than I, discussing the best novels they’ve read (and that I’ve never heard of). I’m glad that retirement will afford me the chance to read these books. Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to discuss them with anybody who has also read them by that time, unless those recommending them can be there by the time I catch up.
When is a person supposed to work, eat, read the books everybody else reads, work out at the gym and get a healthy amount of sleep? I don’t believe it’s possible. I have given up a lot of my reading in order to work on my novel series, and television is an occasional luxury turned on mostly for the background noise while I work from home in what amounts to solitary confinement with benefits.
Don’t get me wrong: the party was a fun time, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Sitting there in what was, to me, an entire world I will never be part of, at least gave me an opportunity to learn what is happening out there. Sometimes knowing the possibilities is enough to get one through the endless highway of single isolationism.
That and some good food and fireworks.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 