What Now?

So what now? I’d like to try for a while single and not looking, certainly until the end of this year and maybe for all of 2019. It feels like 8 years since I was just myself, free of the struggles and entanglements of partnership but also adrift and lonely. I’ve got friends and family that may need adventures. I can try to be there for them.

I’m also still quite unemployed. I should get a job. Soon. I can throw myself into work, get to know a new set of coworkers, and try to make the workplace a better place to live.

I can build two Snowflakes this fall, start a Sphere, and contemplate what “Art” next means to me. Perhaps I can write a short story or a novel.

I would like to return to the Vajrapani Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz mountains. I can be quiet and small for a few days. No roaring, please.

I have parents who will die.

I wonder if I will date again. I’m 46 on a collision course with fifty. I find few people attractive, fewer of those people find me attractive, and almost none of what’s left is available. It took me seven years to ask Stephanie out on a date. I don’t have any 2-, 4-, or 7-year irons currently in the fire.

Folks may speculate whether I’ll try next a man or a woman. What’s the Vegas line for Steve’s sexuality? I’ve previously gone on extended safari with the menagerie of a Penguin and an Owl. What about a Fox next, or an Eagle, or Cat, or even another Dinosaur? Maybe even one with a beard. Nah, I’m not that crazy.

What I find important to a relationship has changed as I age. Simply put, I’m not as horny as once was, so smoking hot is not as much of a requirement or aspiration as it once was when I was younger. I’m focusing now on teamwork. Can we do a lot of activities together? Is there a richness to our interactions? Perhaps I’ll find someone that amazes me, that travels with an aura of excitement and possibility.

I do worry that I’m broken for relationships. Beware that I’ll leave you when I get bored, or frustrated, or it is September or just a rainy Tuesday. I hope I approach each subsequent relationship better with improved tools and an improved me. I listen more to my heart. I try to speak what it says.

I already have strong friendships. I could happily spend the rest of my life roommates with Ruben, or John Major, or my brother, or several others. I’d even get married to Ruben, but not to disparage him, I don’t find him sexually attractive, and likely he feels the same way. Yet, we share boardgames, beers, films, ideas, trips, and the ups and downs of life. I accept that he wakes most days at noon and uses toilet paper obsessively. That’s just Ruben. I would not want him any other way. He’s a cartoon character. We don’t do everything together – we don’t sport, go to gay clubs, build things – but I can do those activities with others.

What’s enough? What now?