What I Learned About LOVE Watching My Mother Go On Her FIRST DATE In 51 Years

I don't think any marriage or relationship is perfect. I think I learned this watching my parents alternate between arguing with great passion and heat -- and in the very same breath bearing witness to that same intensity spill over into their love for one another. I also think as an outsider looking in you can't truly comprehend the magnitude of what it means to live and breathe in the same air as another person for 40-plus years. (I've got just 15 years under my belt and can attest to the fact that -- at times -- it can be painfully EXHAUSTING.) And when you find yourself without said person -- I can't even begin to imagine what that must feel like.

My husband is akin to my second right arm (I'm a rightie by the way). Every morning he is the one who gives me my Vitamin D pill, he pries the cell phone out of my sleeping hands so that I don't wake up with it pasted to my cheek, and he is the one who listens to me COMPLAIN about everything. Of course LIFE GOES ON. We have no choice, even when we feel like our lives no longer have meaning or purpose without this person -- the world does not wait for us -- and so we too must continue to move forward.

Which brings me to Sunday, Father's Day, and my mother's FIRST DATE in 51 years. To say that she was terrified does not even cover it. To say that she thought bringing a bag which included; Mylanta, Immodium, her inhaler, a stack of magazines and a can of bathroom spray, with her on her said date -- to me spoke volumes about her anxiety. Of course I let her bring NONE of said items with her on the date, as I told her it would be quite unlikely that she would need said items for the mere hour she would be on this date and if she did she could call me an, being that I was parked right around the corner, I'd motor over there and bring her the Mylanta for an emergency SWIG.

Sitting in the car, I watched her fix her face as she asked me if she should tell this man that she never graduated from college -- to which I responded, "MOMMY at his age, he will be happy if you can make it across the street by yourself without a walker." I realized that no matter what age we are we all share those same feelings and thoughts about love, rejection and finding happiness.

I also learned another very important thing -- people do not look anything like the PROFILE PICTURES they post on dating sites... in fact having seen this man's picture prior to dropping my mother off to meet him -- one might have thought they were two different men. Alas they are the same man -- however the picture this man posted might have been of him as a 61 year old as opposed to a 71 year old.

Still we are all HUNGRY for someone to love us. Here I am sitting in the car watching my mother walk across the street to this virtual stranger -- who looks like he himself is having a hard time walking -- and all I can think is that this 71-year-old man just took a subway and a bus, in the sweltering heat on the off chance that he might find a kindred spirit in my mother. That's right. At 71, this man is still hoping for the possibility of a connection with another person.

And while my mother did not find her love connection (she said his ear hair and nails were too long and she didn't like his comb-over) at least she is getting out there -- right?!

This post originally appeared on Married My Sugar Daddy

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