What do the lonely do on Christmas?

The other day I ventured into the Bay, downtown Toronto, looking for a specific item that, as it happens, I didn’t find. Walking around the store searching for a Plan B gift it occurred to me that the reason I’m a late Christmas shopper is because I only enjoy holiday music on actual Christmas Eve and Day. I don’t know if this is a bi-product of spending so many Christmases working in retail or if it’s a December-birthday protest. But I can tell you that the more holiday music that’s played the faster I high-tail it outta the store.

On this particular day, it didn’t matter where I went, a sad Christmas song followed me. “What do the lonely do on Christmas,” plaintively played in the Bay; another store a  male hip-hop singer whined, “My girl forgot about me this Christmas.” In the absence of a decent newly penned Christmas song, I’ll take a good ol’ Jingle Bells or Let it Snow.

“What do the lonely do on Christmas,” is not a song you want to hear as you cruise through a mall, knowing that the last few Christmases have been a kind of lonely you find hard to speak about, and clearly there’s been not much progress in these last 365 days. Sure, I have family and friends. But there’s something extra special missing at this extra special time, that seems to last an extra special longer time with each passing year.

I didn’t even have the energy to feel insulted by such a song. What do the lonely do indeed?

“The Lonely”

As a kid I loved the season, most kids do, and having those memories are what makes solo Christmases sorta sad. In theory I still do enjoy the holidays. In practice, I try to make the most of them.  But if the stores must serenade us, please don’t let it be with a song that puts me back in the mood I work so hard to cajole myself out of at this time of year.

Stupid song!

Who did you think I was?

Last night I was out for some birthday’s eve drinks with a gal pal. I’m in my late 40s, she’s in her mid-2os. I have a few younger friends and always seem to fall into a mentor type relationship with them, giving them career advice, lending my ear on relationship worries. I enjoy hearing about their struggles and triumphs in the world — the same, and yet so much different from mine, based on being born decades apart. Though I am a nurturing person in general,  I wouldn’t say I mother these young women.

So, I was surprised when my pal and I were mistaken for mother and daughter. A first it was a vanity thing, I suppose. You know, mid-life birthday sensitivity. People never tire of being shocked when they find out my age because apparently, so I’ve been told regularly, I do not look it. (Believe me, I know how old I am when I look in the mirror in the early A.M.!)

AHA, I thought, I caught the lot of them in a lie! I said as much to my friend. Her reaction was to say that she gets mistaken for older than she is, which only made me feel worse! (after all, not too long ago a corner store clerk asked me if my request to buy a transit pass was for adult or senior!!!)

But anyway…

I realized later the true reason why I bristled at the mistake. This innocent observer (who, by the way, was a street person who had sadly, but with savvy, set up a temporary shelter on a very cold night in the ATM vestibule of a bank), couldn’t have known that I am not a mother, and that I’m still getting square with that in my mind. Some days it’s ok, sometimes – and the passing of another year might be one of those times – it’s not.

The truth is, had I brought forth life, he or she may well have been early to mid-twenties by now. I’d be enjoying a companionship whose bond goes way beyond even the best friendship.

There’s no way my young friend, with so much promise and life in front of her, could understand this. It’s my issue and one that comes to roost for  women (and probably some men) who, by choice or by circumstance, haven’t had children.

It makes me sad, but also relieved that I am not so superficial as to be worried about looking at least my age.

Thank goodness for small mercies!

Cupid is a knavish lad

When you’re single people love to suggest solutions. I hate dating, I think everyone does. There’s nothing comfortable about it.

At a certain point though, you feel like you at least have to try everything once. Even if it’s so those well meaning people in your life can’t accuse you of being too “picky.”

Here’s my story which was published in the November ‘09 issue of More Magazine.

Meet Your Match

Life with a cat

This happens at 6:30 am. EVERY. DAY.

And now, introducing the culprit of this morning ritual, Caliban.

He was given to me as a Valentine’s present from a guy on his way out of my life – a replacement… of sorts.

Despite what seems like a bittersweet fact, he is a joy (and sometimes a menace).

There are stories!

Life outside the lines

I wonder, at what point do you stop calling yourself a late-bloomer and embrace your life outside the lines? Doing so entails getting square with your choices.

Now I’m not one of those people who will sugar-coat my life. There are some advantages to the solitary life, and in many ways I choose it since I have come to understand just exactly how much time I need alone, which is perhaps more than average. But I would still very much like to be companioned, to have a soft place to land, someone with whom to share thoughts, ideas,  hopes and dreams, meals and my bed (other than the cat, who does a great job of warming it up for me, but still cannot hold a conversation, cook a meal, move the furniture… though he does a mean job of killing spiders!)

The bravado thing is the hardest part for me to deal with – I just don’t have any buts, as in but I have great friends, a supportive family, my work, my freedom, my dog/cat/garden. I see alot of this kind of covering over or making up for around me (some of it in the form of a great big impenetrable male/female-bashing wall) and it’s a real turn-off. More than that, all I see when I look at men and women who do that is so much pain.

The reality of my life is that I am almost 49, not-yet-married, no kids, no parents and though I have close family,  my life is a world apart from theirs and most people I know. I spend most of my time alone, and there are distinct times when  solitude becomes loneliness. Loneliness can derail you if you don’t learn to understand and cope with it.

So, welcome to The Modern Spinster where I hope to provide an underrepresented cohort some fun, some doses of real life, and a whole lot of comfort in recognition.