Another Woman

I still have this incurable writer’s block but I slowly feel myself emerging back to my former self. The one that could fly across the page fingers not moving fast enough with the thoughts pouring from my head. Everything popping inside me and flowing freely — like champagne on an evening with like-minded friends. In the meantime, as I struggle to formulate the story I wish to write in my head (make that stories), I find myself asking questions. Lots and lots of questions. Most of them have no definitive answers. That does not make them rhetorical — for rhetorical questions have answers that exist without the question even being asked in the first place.

And maybe it’s because the sun is shining. Maybe it’s because I burned words, thoughts, and intentions last night at the Cold Moon Burn (yes, I am often accused of witchcraft). Maybe it’s because the fog is lifting. Or perhaps I am just becoming more comfortable with who I am (so cliche, I know). Anyway . . . I find myself wondering . . . are all men my age seeking an “other?”

I ask this because I repeatedly find myself in situations — relationships — often purely sexual — in which I am the other woman. And not necessarily in a clandestine way. It seems that dirty, little secrets are things of the past. The new mantra is “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It seems when the military abandoned the mantra, men across the globe came to some agreement with their female partners. As if somehow “not telling” makes everything okay. If you ask these men, they might tell you that they are partnered or that they have been in a long-term relationships (perhaps even marriage) and although there isn’t much there or she has another lover, they aren’t interested in ending it. Perhaps it’s financial. Perhaps it’s emotional retardation (this is the only place you can use that word properly by the way). They are simply encumbered in some way. Most will tell you they still love her. And so that begs the question — how can they also love you? Assuming that they fall in love. I’m not immune to the thought that sex is sometimes just that — sex. Sometimes the best you can expect from someone is to share space and conversation followed by a post-coital glow.

It’s seems that 40-something is the new sexual revolution. Filled with affairs, polyamory, dalliances, and lack of any sexual proclivity. To complain would be trite. After all, I have benefited from this very shift in thinking. Or have I? You see be the “other” woman means you are just “another woman.” And for a time that seems okay because you don’t have to commit your heart (which is really your fucking brain by the way) to anyone. You float in and out at times of need and convenience. You are free. Unencumbered. This is all well and good until you fall . . .

Then you are left crippled and dripping in the proverbial blood from your heart. Sure that you will never recover. Being the “other” or “another” means you can never win. You weren’t chosen in the first place. You were just an escape. And you sit in your own squalor-ous tears and sulk for days, sometimes months on end. There is no one to blame but yourself. You blame him anyway. How unfair, how unjust! He told you the truth in the first place. You refused to listen. These are things he says to you.

The hopeless romantic in you wants to be “the one” the Zelda to Fitzgerald. And then you realize, THE WOMEN, they are in more excruciating pain than you. Because they know that the “other,” the “another” will always exist. Even if she isn’t you.

Related posts:

Many are debating whether to cut off their cable providers. With so many subscription streaming services like Netflix, people choose them because they have more control over what they watch and can…

Vanochtend stonden we voor de laatste keer in het startvak. Dit jaar was er geen klimtijdrit, maar een korte bergetappe met dan ook bergop aankomst, en de eerste +/- 10km geneutraliseerd. Roemer…

Social media has been one of the biggest forms of communication over the past 20 years. One things that social media users have learned over the last year, with the pandemic hitting, is that social…