“Ahyup. She’s got a hole.” The technician said as he scrutinized the monitor. He sounded almost excited about this discovery. Lying there listening to the amplified sound of my heart beating, I wondered what that meant. A hole seemed kind of alarming to me, but he had the happily engaged demeanor of a good fisherman landing a hook. I had known about my MVP heart murmur all of my life, but this was news.
I have a hole in my heart. Not the “God hole” of recovery speak or a hole born of loneliness wherein only true love could heal me. Just a plain old hole, atrial septal defect to be precise. I have discovered that a large number of folks (mostly women) are born with a hole in their hearts. Surgery used to be performed on these. Corrections were made until it was determined that people could get along quite well without mending.
Recently on my yearly visit to the cardiologist, my doctor asked: “Still taking your baby aspirin every day?” “No,” I replied, “I didn’t think I had to, different doctor told me it was okay to quit.” “Well, I’m the heart guy and you need to be taking it. That ASD can cause a stroke.” For emphasis and lest I forget he called in a prescription for it. For aspirin! Apparently, this is common among frustrated physicians. A stroke? EWWWWW! That’s just downright nasty! I am on it Doc.
This is Women’s Heart Health Month, and according to the American Heart Association, one in three women will die of heart disease. An astonishing 48 percent of all Americans have some form of it, so this is the part where I remind everyone to see a doctor annually and follow the guidelines. Lower that cholesterol, swallow that aspirin, get that heart beating faster, and feed it with green stuff. Might keep you alive. Might not. You could get hit by lightning or kicked in the head by a horse. Nature being dearly fond of calamity, Lord knows anything could happen, but when you are dead at least we can say that you tried.
The thing that will make the real difference, that will keep you alive in the hearts of others if not your own is of course:
Love. There are all kinds of love.
February is also the month of valentines where the lucky get to celebrate their coupledom with feasts and festivities and a strumming of their heartstrings. For a plethora of reasons, a lot of older folks will not be among this crowd. A whopping 37 million Americans live alone. That’s 28 percent of all households. 34 percent of women over sixty live alone, 21 percent of men. That grows to 48 percent when folks are in their seventies. So, it seems that nearly half of us will not be crowding into restaurants or raiding the shelves of a See’s candy store on the big February day. We will be home with a good book, good dog, great meal or a group of pals or whatever else keeps us company and brings us joy.
In my immediate circle of friends, four have lost partners in the last three years. It was a privilege to witness the heart-stopping devotion of these folks to their beloveds. It was beautiful to see and boy, was it also terrible. Three coped with long illnesses while the one coped with the shock of sudden onset. As for their partners, my friends who passed, they did all the things we are supposed to do. They jogged and ate well and followed the rules. Destiny cared not a fig for their virtues. These beautiful couples had great solid marriages and many good valentines’ seasons and then that bastard Fate played its hand. The ones left behind are still reeling, still grieving and still learning to live alone. It will take time. It will take love. There are all kinds of love.
There are also folks like me with “failed” marriages. That has a nasty ring to it doesn’t it? It is a societal designation that never loses its sting. We dutifully check the box on form after form. Divorced. (Failed.) Though why the bank wants to know, and the dentist needs this information is beyond me.
At one point we all had our fair share of valentines. We are all of us grateful to have loved.
Love is loss, but you knew that already. Life is loss and you know that too. So for a variety of reasons, a lot of us are on our own, but that does not mean we are alone.
My life is filled with love. With the blessing of family and ages-old friendships and the spark of new people met and admired. I am never bored and truly not lonely. I enjoy my own company, sometimes maybe a little too much. One can easily become too isolated. I have to be mindful of that. I have to put myself in the mix. I have to make plans with people and God knows I have to put said plans on the calendar or they will fall to the wayside of forgetting.
The pandemic really had a different impact on folks who live alone. “Oh, we hate Zoom,” my coupled friends would say. ‘It’s just annoying”. Well, they had each other. In the early days of lockdown I had only my very good dog for company and the sight of faces on a screen was helpful, a tonic. So, I would beg and cajole and they being good friends, would capitulate and voila intimacy. Facetime. Love. It was enough. Had to be.
If you are 50’s plus and still doing the couple’s only dinner party thing you are dating yourselves. No one under 40 does that and I have to say that at this stage of life it just seems downright odd. Is there really still a fear that a stray single attendee might pass the potatoes and steal away with someone’s mate? Cause um that’s not happening. We don’t have the energy. We want to head home, put on our scuffies and watch the news. You can keep the candy and the special night out on the over-crowded town. We single are many and soon will be equal in proportion to you marrieds, so let it go. Embrace the odd number.
This is going to be a curious time as this “boom” population ages together in historic numbers. We have the opportunity to redefine what that looks and feels like. There is much talk of compound living and wagon train circles of tiny homes. There are experiments afoot in matching seniors to school kids in need of mentoring, of family teaching homes and of course there are the wild and wooly retirement communities awash in pickle ball and STDs. A lot of us will be planning our futures by ourselves, many of us by choice and most of us happily. Married or single one thing for sure is we are all in this together. Could get interesting. I think I’ll stick around to see the show.
There is a hole in my heart, but it is really quite full. I am loved and I am grateful.
Take a walk. Take your aspirin. Heed your heart. It’s got a lot of beating left to do.
On we go …
Fabulous!
Good one, Beth ❤️