Define: Togetherness

Dating is not for the faint of heart. Dating over 50 is for the crazed.

I have this man who appears to be nice, fun, intelligent and so on, and he's nutz about me. My mental and emotional state is somewhere on the continuum of awestruck - dazed - humbled - screaming meemies. And it's a sliding marker on the continuum. I vacillate among the various chords on the scale.

But it occurs to me that I'm prematurely crazed. There's no set definition for togetherness. I don't have to fit this relationship or whatever it is into any little box.

I don't think I want to move to L.A. He doesn't want to move where it's cold. So do we have a long-distance relationship and see each other every three weeks or so, all the while knowing that we've got a solid, reliable relationship? But isn't part of having a relationship the ability to hook my long leg around his waist as we lie in bed, falling asleep, talking about our days?

One reads frequently in the Tucson paper about couples who marry or cohabit later in life. For many of them, this involves either houses proximately located to each other, or a house with a guest house. The man lives in the guest house and can have his cigars and be a slob and whatever else floats his boat, and the woman has the main house and keeps it neat. They spend their days together, they just don't spend their nights together.

I don't know what I want. Two years ago, even one year ago, I would have said I wanted to be married or cohabit. Now I don't know. I was getting to the point of accepting my inevitable aloneness for the balance of my days. Interestingly enough, the Biker had also reached that position. Then — Ka-Boom — our mutual friends saw light bulbs and invited me to dinner. The rest is becoming history.

So the lesson I'm learning out of this is that I don't have to figure everything out today or today or today.

There's a house at 2219 5th Avenue in Youngstown that inhabits my dreams right now. It's so me. And there's little boy in Youngstown who asked me today if I couldn't come at Hallowe'en and stay until Christmas.

My heart breaks. My heart quakes. And for once in my adult life I'm not jumping to conclusions or taking rash actions. I'm sitting on my thumbs. My reaction to my panic is to hold the world at arms' length.

Why isn't life ever easy?! (Oh, sorry. I repeat myself. This is absolutely not the first time I've asked that question.)