By Victor Greto
Holidays for single, middle-aged guys without spouses or a steady girlfriend are the best.
No kidding.
Yes, there are the awkward moments in the grocery store when, late at night, you’re walking quickly up and down the aisles, small plastic basket in hand, in search of cheap food and the women look at you sadly. Or, you catch the gaze of another single, middle-aged guy with a basket full of similar soup cans and ready-made salads.
But it’s frankly exhilarating when the women who look at you sadly have a cartful of junk food and a couple of whiny brats next to them.
Dodged a bullet there!
And, come to think of it, with the guys you see late at night in grocery stores, it’s sort of like a nanosecond bonding moment. And a nanosecond is all I need.
But I know.
Even guys tell me there’s nothing like having a son or daughter, especially around the holidays, who you can love and who loves you back – well, who love you back at least some of the time. And who you might need when you reach geezerdom.
Still, I prefer the journey alone.
I prefer waking up when I feel like it. Blasting music when I feel like it. Going to bed when I feel like it – and then getting up a couple of hours later to read and not hearing, “What’s wrong?”
I prefer taking walks and smoking cigars when I feel like it. Returning home and smelling like cigars without someone telling me I do. And, well, I prefer having women over when I feel like it.
But, especially at this time of year, I am ecstatic about not having to go over to the in-laws for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I am happy I don’t have to get them (or get from them) perfunctory gifts that have less meaning than a political debate.
See, back in the Stone Age when I was married, I used to deliberately work on holidays not to have to do this. Not to have to sit through sanctimonious sermons from her old man. Not to have to chew badly-cooked dinners while hearing boring reminiscences of holidays past. Not to hear for the nth time stories of her parents’ youth and how things were way-back-when.
What about loneliness? Don’t you get lonely, dude?
Yes, I do.
But the feeling passes like an intestinal bug. And, like that brand of bug, it may linger a bit, but I know what’s on the other side of the feeling.
Freedom. A well-earned freedom, as a matter of fact. I’ve paid my relationship dues.
There’s nothing like the peace my ears feel when there is silence in the house and sun shines through the windows and I write, or read a book, and there’s no one there to tell me – or shriek at me – that I just don’t spend enough time with her family.
Yes, there’s still nothing like the touch of the right woman; but there’s also still nothing like the touch of a cigar on my lips, and the sound of silence.
This Thanksgiving I’m taking a walk with a cigar. I’m walking two miles to visit my mom in the nursing home. I’ll scoot her chair to the big windows on the first floor and hold her hand and look out the window and make small talk think about our lives together.
I will be filled with sorrow about her Parkinson’s-riddled condition.
But I’ll be happy, because I’ll have made her happy without forcing anyone else to do anything.
And I’ll have another cigar on the way back.