I'm 69 today. Outrageous. An insult. Some sort of cosmic joke. And what's next? Well, 70, I suppose. Maybe. (My family is not long-lived).
I'm keenly aware of the absurdity of new beginnings at this point. The absurdity of nearly everything. Except absurdity. Maybe. I'm aware that this is no time to be starting new relationships. There's no future in it, honey. Lol.
And yet here I am in a relationship with a woman 20 years younger than I. Goodness, I remember well when that would have meant she would be in her 20s. She's not. But she looks like she is. It is somehow fortuitous, I think, that her own situation is so odd--living on another island, unable to leave there for more than a week or two at a time every three or four months. How very quickly the years must pass in this scenario, it seems. Surely, I must age and rot in the intervals like the Picture of Dorian Gray. Ah well, it should serve as an effective test of love. And that's not the only silver lining, for I think we shall find it difficult to tire of one another, given that we will rarely see one another.
As it is, we talk/chat/text numerous times every day and we get to know one another very well. It reminds me of one of those old 18th century novels where people in far flung parts of England (or wherever) carry on long distance courtships through letters which become ever more maudlin. (Although we are not maudlin. She is not that type of girl. She's a strange girl, an odd girl, actually, and I love it).
In fact, she is the great, miraculous gift in these poor old years of mine. I told her from the beginning that I have nothing to offer, not even a future, and somehow she seems fine with that. See, I told you she's odd. What can she be thinking? Is there something, after all, worthy about me that I myself cannot see?
What's that old saying again? Never look a gift horse in the mouth?
Could it possibly be that fate, or providence, knows something more than I.
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