For those of you who are new here, tonight’s message is for singles and couples alike, and for your single friends, and for your couple friends, which is basically everyone except for your children, at least until they are no longer children, so you may want to book mark this.
Have you been watching the new cultural phenomenon that is The Golden Bachelor? I mean I have to watch it, because my clients expect me to know about the important things going on in the world, like Gerry (pronounced Gary), the 72 year old-ish widower, who is looking for love by hopping on National TV to date 25 mature women in the search for his soul mate number two, or part two; a companion for his “golden” years.
Now, I confess that I am a little behind. I watch the replays, but that is okay because my point on this all is unaffected by what actually happened this week. And my point is this. If Gerry can do it so can you. Whether you are single, or in a marriage. Your brother or sister or bestie…we can all do it. We can KEEP ROMANCE ALIVE, bloody hell. If Gerry can do it, and if 25 mature women who have been divorced, or lost husbands, or sometimes both, who have aged, and have grandchildren and been through some shit, can still get up in the morning and get themselves ready for a date that will be filmed by cameras and broadcast across the world, for the love of all things good and beautiful, if THEY can have enough faith to put on the makeup, find their best outfits, look past their wrinkles and lumps and bumps and insecurities and sensitivities and fall in love with themselves, long enough and deeply enough to believe that someone else is seeing them how they wish to be seen, is feeling the butterflies, is taking seriously the proposition of spending their golden, that means LAST BEST years with them, and only them, even when there are bloody 24 other women doing the same freaking thing, then we all can. Am I right?!! Like respect, mature bitches (She says as though she is a spring chicken. She is not a spring chicken).
Not because they are the low bar. Hell no that isn’t what I mean at all. Because in fact some of these women can’t be 71, according to the genetics I see in my worldly travels. No no no, but rather because of the intense vulnerability of putting yourself out there, after all that you have been through, in a pool of 24 other women, on a media stage that you have no control over, from a bad camera angle to how you are portrayed, and seen, and judged. I mean that takes some serious serious SER-IO-US lady cojones. For Gerry, too. He has to be the diplomat, love up everyone, be open to everyone, treat everyone well, give everyone their five minutes of flirt. The sheer number of lips that 72 year old must serve with Hollywood worthy kisses in a week makes us all want to put on sweats and take a hard nap, doesn’t it?
I am working with a lovely couple right now, to reignite their romantic spark, and it looks like this.
You need to put on the suit coat.
Tell the funny story.
Wear the red lipstick.
Take yourself to the massage, or the salon, or for the great hair, or nails.
You need the date night; the ceremony, the ambiance, the effort.
You need the change in dynamic.
You need the other hats off; for singles that is the board room hat, the executive hat, for couples it might be the same. It might also be the co-parent hat, the business partner hat.
For all of us, it’s the shitty life problems hat.
Yes. Partners support us through those hard things once we have them, lol.
But it can’t be all that.
Because that dreamy, lovestruck, ooey gooey feeling that gets us to the altar in the first place, what lights us up about our person and how that lights up us, that is the glue of romantic relationship.
We don’t have to feel it for everyone.
We don’t need everyone to feel it for us. That would be exhausting. And weird.
But we need to nurture it and water it and believe it in and put metaphorical lipstick on it to keep it alive.
Within our romantic seeking hearts.
And within our coupled hearts.
Which means go on the date night.
It means close the door to the bathroom.
It means that even if you’re surviving some shit with an IV of Ben and Jerry’s, put on a clean shirt around your partner and make yourself feel sexy for a date once a bloody week.
Talk about interesting things. Be funny. I know you have it in you.
Get on a gondola, or walk on a beach, or feed each other dessert, or watch a steamy movie, or whatever it takes. Open the door, or buy the flowers.
Play the part. Wine them and dine them. Flirt. Be frivolous and talk about frivolous things.
Look, after so many episodes, I find myself invested in Gerry’s romantic future.
I mean I think he could handle a few wives. JK.
But what I hear most often from the participants is how surprised they are that it can all still happen at their age, and after what they have been through.
They’re all believing in love again.
And why the hell not?
What better way to live your golden years, when you’ve still got some pep in your step, you have nothing to prove, and can really enjoy the fruits of life, the rewards, the indulgence and the simplicities.
But also, what better way to live your today, whatever the season.
I’m wearing a nice dress today, my companions in love and relationship, because I care about that magical me, who holds the world in an engaging smile.
Who feels so great she wants to look the world in the eyes and hold its gaze.
I invite you to do the same.
To take the power out of whatever it is that is holding you back, an idea, a problem, some heaviness; a fear that you aren’t all that and a bag of Smarties.
Because I guarantee that you are. And that someone out there (or in your very own living room) is counting on it, with all they’ve got.
Much love,
Erin