Divorced, 57; kid has grown up and moved out, and it’s just you and the dog. No dishes in the sink that you didn't put there and all of the messages are for you because nobody calls the dog. You paint your walls rose-beige, because your rugby-playing ex-husband will never have to look at them. Whoever you're dating can go home and paint his walls chartreuse for all you care. And you don’t have to defend watching shows like Lost, which, thank God, the dog likes watching, too. It's a totally democratic way to live. You vote on everything, and after the election, you always win.
Summer weekends, there's no need to glam up because the dog doesn’t care. You dress like Camilla Parker Bowles Windsor, wearing Wellingtons and old corduroys, and traipse around the garden in the mud. You don't have to have modern Scandinavian chairs in your living room or frilly nightgowns in your underwear drawer. You can clean out the garage and toss the two cans of nuts and bolts into one can without incurring anyone's manly wrath.
But okay, there is a downside to all this freedom. Nobody helps with the bills. Nobody (but you) tapes the windows when the hurricane's coming. Being alone means you have only two hands for getting things done, not four. Most people you know have four. And you miss — dare you admit it? — the sheer comfort of love.
Your mother, if she's still living, suffers for you. "Poor you," she says, making a tragic face as she reaches to pat your hair across the table of the restaurant you have taken her to, to celebrate your own birthday. "Unlucky in love."
Your friends are subtler. "There's a new guy working at Margie's Grocery Corner. He's quite tall." You hem and haw over offers (fairly few) to set you up, but then you capitulate and go out on a blind date.
"You're not getting any younger,” your mother says when she calls the next morning. You kick yourself for telling her about the date at all. “What was wrong with this one?" she says.
