Valentine's Day

My birthday is coming up in 3 days and I’ll be 58 whole years old, and today is Valentine’s Day. I have been meaning to write about this for a while, so I guess today is just as good as any other day. I have been trying to find things to write about but I didn’t know my life was this boring. Well, actually it isn’t but I do have dry spells every now and then.

I probably will have another boring Valentine’s Day, but it is an overpriced commercially created day. And since I have been divorced for the 20 years, 2 months, 2 days, 4 hours, 53 minutes and a few odd seconds ago, I really haven’t participated.

I was in a doomed relationship from 2002 to 2004. And if I didn’t buy her something I probably would have gotten my head ripped off or have green pea soup spit on me as her head spun around…and in another failed relationship, from 2009 to 2010, I did manage to make it through two Valentine Days.

There was once a question going around and I got asked every so often; the question revolved around as to why I was single. I have quite a few answers and I am going to stick with every one of them, but there are two that really stuck out. The first one is relatively resent. I had a single traumatic episode that occurred in my life in December of 2005. That’s when I found out I had Prostate Cancer.

I had the surgery, the last day of June, 2006, to remove my prostate. I was told that I could have a “normal” sex life after about a year. So, I waited. But, late into 2006 I questioned my Urologist and he told me that a “normal” sex life could only happen if I got an implant or used those blue pill are something like them. But, as it was, nothing worked. Not the blue pills, green pills, yellow or orange pills

This is because; those pills are effective and only work for those who have had other circulatory problems, like diabetes or heart disease. They don’t work if you had your prostate removed. I even got into an argument with a couple of MySpace “friends” because they said that those remedies worked for their friends.

What bothered me was the fact that when I told women that I wanted to get to know them better and the conversation led to sex, I told them my problem and I never heard from them again. I still tell potential suitors and still get the same reaction. So, there is my reason for me still being single.

But, in 2009 I met someone from one of those local online dating services; she was a fantastic person, a very good person. I told her my problem and she accepted it, considering that I found out about those toys I never knew about and were expensive, but my insurance paid for them. But, as with everybody I’ve been with, (I am not perfect by any means), she had a couple of fatal flaws. Besides being a very high maintenance woman, she wanted to be like her daughter and wanted someone to take care of her, which I didn’t mind, but that is a two way street, and it was only going one way, her way. I can say that I had two wonderful Valentine days, though.

I really don’t think I am asking for too much, but I know I was trying too hard to maintain a relationship. I think that started in about 2001 when I met that crazed woman. I didn’t know she was that crazed at the time, but truly found out later. Anyway, I really bent over backward to make her happy and all I did was break my back bending backward. Needless to say, that was a relationship that was doomed from the beginning.

Everyone after that I tried being super, way too nice with. I think that was my downfall because I had to keep a clamp on my lips, sit on my hands anything I could from not blowing up at the things women did to “please” their man. The last relationship was the killer. I just couldn’t do it anymore, be with someone who had their own best interest in mind.

I guess being retired and having a fixed income didn’t help either. But the more I looked into myself I could see that it also didn’t help that I remembered what had happened to my parents. I didn’t want to go through what they did, “for the sake of the children”, per se.

Since I retired I have seen the light, stopped to smell the roses, calmed down, enjoyed life and found peace of mind, I am at peace with myself. I will not let someone come into my life and destroy what took me 53 years to finally figure out and the last five years enjoying it.

My mother was a strong woman; she stood up for herself and her children. During those turbulent times my parents argued day in and day out and I think that took something out of me. I refused to argue with that crazed woman; she told me that all people “need” to argue, her shrink mentioned that to her, I wasn’t going to do that.

In my younger years I was a strong man, kind of arrogant, stubborn, hard-headed, big-headed, and superior, or at least in my own mind I was. I guess it took marriage and two sons to slow me down, but my marriage lasted only 10 years. I took in all that I was doing wrong and tried to make myself into a new person.

That’s when all the “stuff” hit the fan and I had to find out what I was doing wrong. I had come to the conclusion that I was doing nothing wrong or right for that matter, I was just picking the wrong women.

So now I sit here writing about Valentine’s Day, or lack thereof, for me, on this sanctimonious day.

I enjoy my life now, and the people I associate with and my friends and everything about it. There is a lot more to me; I’m like an onion, many layers and have figured out that it’s hard to open up and peel some of those layers away. I would like to say I blame my parents for that, but…I know me, I know what I need to do…And to be honest, I really don’t think I can do it again because everyone is different and want different things in their lives.

I’ve realized one thing, as of late, it’s better to be single than to be in a wrong relationship. And I now see that I am happier for it. **Smile!**