Vicissitudes
Late Lightning
By P. J. HANKOFF
I am a late bloomer. My love life began with a French kiss on an IRT platform somewhere in Brooklyn. I was 16 and clueless; she was 15 and so stunning that all sound stopped in her presence. Within a year, sex had become second nature because I am also a quick study, and I’d fallen in and out of love a good five times, maybe six.
Young love was easy: a look – a joke – a smile – a kiss – a bed – a promise – a question – a fight – an end – a tear. Then hope and another look — another joke – a new smile – a fresh kiss – the same bed – and on it went.
I never bothered to ask myself what lve was until I ended up divorced in my early 40s. That breakup was like a violent car wreck; the chassis came to rest way before all the flying debris inside. And for the first time – ever – I chose to not be in a relationship and not be an “overlapper.” I became a late-blooming “processor” who really looked at what went wrong so I could actually learn how to choose.
I never lost the idea of finding someone new, I can’t say it was the romantic in me because I no longer believed in love – well, not “love love” — not falling in love. Oh sure, I could still muster the look and the joke and for sure the bed — but not the heart or the idea of sharing a life … not really sharing.
I had to dissect love from sex and sex from intimacy and try to understand what I was looking for, not just who I was looking for. Love had to be more than a feeling, because all my feelings were on hold.
To go into middle age alone as a new person — a broken person — became an interesting hunt for who I was and who I wanted to be. But along the way I gave up any notion of true love being true or love if it were to cross my path.
I’d heard the French have a saying: “Men should date women half their age plus 9 years.” Women half my age plus 9 have very little in common with me. I discovered that when I went over to the apartment of a 32-year-old and scanned her stack of CDs. I recognized exactly one title, “Radiohead,” and that was on her oldies stack. I walked out of there empty-handed … and empty. How the hell could I fall for anyone who thinks of that small plane lost at sea when asked where they were when Kennedy was killed?
There was something very cool about being a middle-aged single: it was my place – my music – my taste – and my laundry. My fear of being alone was not loneliness, or even lack of sex (liar); it was the possibility of going feral and selfish or becoming the guy who yells at kids to get off the lawn. I did not want to turn into a parked car or the male equivalent of a cat lady – in a home filled with tools and guitars and car parts.
Where was I going to meet anyone worth dating? A very wise friend told me that the one thing all my bad relationships had in common was me, and suggested I make a list of all the qualities I wanted in a mate “and then go be those things” … whatever the hell that meant.
I’ve got a buddy who fell for someone he’d reconnected with at our high-school reunion, but high school was 30 years and 3,000 miles away. So I tried on-line dating. I found the most interesting part was how I projected myself to the world.
I found the Internet to be its own kind of addiction: obsessive e-mail checking and on-line hunting for “her.” Eventually I unplugged it, realizing the thrill of the search had become the de facto romance.
So I rearranged my furniture and threw out clothes not touched in a year (or more) and opened my heart to just being … all the time trying to remember to be or have all those things I wanted in a mate: humor, intelligence, compassion, irony, libido, an appreciation for a sense of what it’s like to break without staying broken. And I wound up comfortable with finding all that in myself.
Then she showed up … out of the blue.
We’d originally met six years earlier through my very concerned brother-in-law. She was married at the time, so I ignored whatever attraction did exist. (My brother-in-law is French, so it didn’t bother him, but I’ve got two dating allergies: husbands and boyfriends.)
Ironically, we reconnected via e-mail. She was now four years divorced, and I was very single. I’d done quite a bit of dating in that six years, tried to fall in love, tried to keep distance, tried to be alone, tried to not give a damn.
Lightning struck on our first date – way too much in common – same age, same Manhattan childhood, same references. Suddenly a familiar cycle reappeared: a look – a joke – a smile. Could this – at 51 – be the romance I’d imagined since I was 16?
Our first kiss was as memorable as that original kiss on the IRT, but this time it came tempered by experience — and cynicism. To meet someone who wanted me as me was amazingly uncomfortable. Suddenly I could see where my heart was lined with pointless defenses (much like Berlin in 1945.) Why was I fighting against the inevitable? Why doubt the new journey?
I could see rather clearly that I was capable of being hurt again, but it was my job to unclench and remain open no matter how unbearable that seemed. Why not accept that there is immense hope? Why not see that I was being seen and met as an equal?
So I have spent the past six months showing up … and being amazed. While my 50s are supposed to be my “prime earning years,” what could be more valuable than seasoned love? Why not admit partnership had indeed arrived? As good as this thing feels and grows, casting old doubts aside runs counter to my middle age nature. But each time I allow myself the adventure, it all seems to flower. At 51? Why not? After all, I have always been a late bloomer.
P.J. Hankoff is a screenwriter and award-winning TV producer. He has spent the past 5 years making documentaries for cable television, most of which focus on World War II and other acts of human unkindness.
