My favorite moment of realizing we had an empty nest at Halfway to a Hundred was looking at my husband and saying out loud, "I still really like, like you. How lucky are we!" I know it is a rare thing to still madly love your husband after 33 years, but I do. And I am pretty sure he loves me back 100%. I know I am lucky beyond measure. Our goal is to make it to 62 years of marriage and beat my grandparents record of 61 years before they died. I will be 84 years old and Les will have to make it to 90. If we get all the way to a Hundred...then we will have been married for 72 years!! That would be so awesome, maybe even better than being in the Olympics!
My own parents called it quits when 6 of us kids left the nest. There's a LOT to unpack in that story, but in essence, my mom said that without the busy-ness of raising kids to keep her distracted, their lack of love and intimacy became more pronounced. So away she moved and my parents separated, I was a freshman at University of Redlands if I recall. My youngest sister was a junior in high school and they took us to Maui for spring break. As we climbed on some big ass bicycles with mega-hand brakes, on a Cruiser Bob tour coasting down down down Mt. Haleakala for 4 hours... "Oh girls! Your Pop and I are getting a divorce! Wheeeeee!" WTF? I think they were both Halfway to a Hundred.
But Wait! There's more! This is their story of being Halfway to a Hundred: Mom was drinking and drinking more and more. Just wine every evening, not like she was hiding alcohol in the hamper, but a goodly big bottle or box of wine went down her gullet. When she decided divorce was better than drinking. Mom joined an AA group. Went to many meetings. Found her people. Funnily, she asked me to go to AA meetings with her because I was drinking. But Hello, I'm at college and away from home, so I told her, "I am supposed to drink and party at this age! Let me go get a problem first, ha!" Mom had a reason to drink it turns out. And coming clean with your demons is part of the AA process. So she tells my Pop, "If you don't tell them, I will." Meaning tell the kids, us, all 6 needed to hear her truth, Pop's truth. Because at this point, my three brothers were blaming my mom for leaving my dad. They felt she was unfair, mean and hurtful breaking our family apart like this. Mom told me and my younger sister this, since we were still close to home and all sharing our heart hopes. Poor Mom. She raised 6 lovely smart young humans and was finding her own independent way, alcohol-free, fifty and sober.
But Wait! There's More! My Pop was gay. He's Halfway to a Hundred and had been gay all along. She didn't know it when they were first married. He did. To be fair though, Pop was born in a time when he couldn't be gay, at least not out loud. So he married Mom as a camouflage, or do they call her his beard? Somehow he managed to have sex with her four times and get four of us kids. Two of my brothers were adopted. So we are three girls, three boys...like the Brady Bunch. I am Jan (middle girl). We grew up knowing our dad loved to decorate and remodel the homes we lived in and moved often. I went to three different high schools! Hmmm... I wonder if we moved often because he was having secret homosexual affairs and we had to get out of those towns before his secrets were revealed? I doubt I will ever know, since Pop has long since passed away from heart failure, so his straying antics will be forever concealed.
But Mom knew. Her gut instinct knew something wasn't right in their marriage. As I said after the busy-ness of raising six children wore off. She told me that he "didn't ever know how to push her button?" Poor Mom never had an orgasm in 28 years of marriage! Now that's a tragedy of the times, right? She was a proper girl and couldn't confide to her mom or friends about her feelings in 1960's, even if it was the hippie era. So she gulped her wine and smiled through it all. She kept busy with our horse shows and the boys' motorcycle races. Until the empty nest...she made Pop tell us the truth, or she would tell us all. It was quite liberating for him actually. At halfway to a hundred, he "came out"...Pop was probably more like 60 by then since he was 10 years older than Mom. He moved to Hillcrest in San Diego, a notoriously gay neighborhood. With bars named Pecs or Hole or Flicks. Pop became a sugar-daddy and found his young Adonis. I'm not making this up, Pop called him his Adonis, paid off the guy's loans, paid for his tattoos to be removed, teeth whitened and paraded him around. Pop was dating a man 30 years younger, my age actually. Poor Mom.
But you know what? Pop finally lived his life. For that is what life is all about right? Just live it. There were some crazy choices in there. Some serious consequences for all and a few more big reveals...which maybe I will write into a saga family fiction novel one day? Because there are details, oh my...I will stop and say no more. But the big takeaway for me was...don't ever lie or try to hide skeletons in your closet. Because it will always always always Come Out one day. (pun intended).
The gist of this message, is find your person, that you like like. If you're lucky AND you are both very honest, then one of life's greatest blessings can be STILL like liking that same lovely soulmate all the way to 100. I know I got lucky finding Les and got smart keeping him. There is a ton of strategic kindness, allowing, and unconditional grace and support involved in being this lucky. But if both sides are willing and realize what you have in your hand, then simply saying "I Like Like You" can be more powerful than Love.
