Refining the Criteria

I drove the babies to Pittsburgh today to see the dinosaurs at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We had a fabulous time, but I had a lot of time to think on the drive down and back.

(Sweet anecdote: both babes fell asleep on the drive home. When he woke up thirty minutes later, Boston asked if we had left Pittsburgh the previous day. He thought he had slept all night long.)

Anyway, my thought processes today were about the characteristics of the type of man who might fit into my life.

I think it starts with education. I didn't finish my bachelor's degree until I was 37 and then went directly into law school. I worked very, very hard to get the education I have. If you haven't heard the story, once I got custody of Tyler in my third year of law school, I worked a full-time and two part-time jobs while I finished law school and then for two years after to provide for his education. My education is one of my proudest accomplishments. When I meet someone who doesn't have at least a bachelor's degree, I find myself apologizing for him to my friends.

So I think that needs to be Thing One on my list.

Thing Two is relationship history. I've been married four (count 'em, four) times, plus a Major Relationship thereafter. I was married a total of 20 years, even though it took me four tries. I question that a man who has made it to his fifties without a marriage could truly understand what it takes to make a relationship work. What experience does he have? What does he understand about sticking together and working together to make the relationship viable (even though at some point you decide enough is enough—that's part of the experience also). I have Life Experience. Lots of it. Okay, some good and some not so good. But I've thought a lot about how I got to where I am today. Lots of therapy. And lots of motivation and commitment to make it work again.

Thing Three goes hand-in-hand with Thing Two. That's children. How could someone who hasn't experienced parenthood understand my long tortuous life with my sons and my exquisite devotion to my grandchildren. I swoon for a man who thinks his grandchildren hung the moon.

Beyond that, the list has to include a closet that contains at least one dress shirt, tie and jacket. He owns a tux and knows how to tie a bow tie? Even better! He should have attended a symphony or opera concert at some point in his life and not hated it. If he knows what a twelve-bar blues progression is and has heard of Nadia Boulanger and recognizes a fugue when he hears it, I would have to respond with a resounding "Wow!" And his living quarters must not be dust-laden or too kitschy with knick-knacks devoid of meaning. A nicely-decorated comfortable place to lay his head? Well, I can envision Sunday mornings with the newspaper and side-by-side laptops and a cup of tea and a cinnamon roll.

I think that, in the past, I've been too willing to settle for the less-than-optimum man. I've thought that if he cared for me, that would be all that mattered and I could make things work.

But I'm wrong. And I need to wait for the man who possesses the desired qualities rather than thinking I can adapt. Adaptability ain't all it's cracked up to be.

I think at my age and stage in life, I'm better off with Mr. No-One than Mr. Not-Quite-Right.

Wow. That's a hard-won self-realization.