It may be too late

Since reconnecting with my best male friend, I've thought about living with him full time. I imagine him here cooking together in the kitchen, doing dishes, sharing the bathroom and sharing everything else and it feels strange. It isn't that I don't care for him or that I don't want to be with him, but I wonder if I have lost the knack of living with someone else full time. I've been single and have lived alone longer than I was married either time or living with someone else. With the kids, it was a matter of time before they were out on their own, but living with a partner, a mate, is not something with an expiration date, or at least one hopes that's the case.

I've become used to quiet mornings and not rushing around fixing breakfast or showering or getting ready to go to work. I get up, go to the bathroom, climb back into bed to get warm and then get up and get ready for work. Since I work at home, there's not much to do, outside of getting breakfast, checking email and putting on warm clothes before sitting down to work. On warm days, I wear little or nothing. Sometimes I take a shower first thing in the morning and most of the time I take one whenever I feel like it. I have no fixed engagements, shop for groceries on Tuesdays or Thursdays, clean house on Saturdays, do laundry on Sundays and the rest of the time let my work and writing obligations and habits determine the shape of my days. If I don't have enough dirty clothes (I don't wear that many clothes working at home) for a load or two on Sundays, I postpone the laundry until I do have enough. I don't cook or eat on a schedule and the only fixed point on my schedule is my day job. Living with someone means changing the shape and contours of my days and I think I've lived alone for too long to be easy or comfortable with sharing space full time with anyone, even someone I love, but I am an adaptable creature.

A part of me resists the change to a comfortable and workable lifestyle and the rest of me welcomes the one person I'd ever consider sharing my space with. Then again, maybe I've lived alone too long. It may be too late for me to change.

In years past when people have asked me about my plans to get married, I had a list ready for them. I'd get married again if the person was older, traveled a lot, financially stable and I don't have to support him and would agree to separate homes and conjugal visits. The added plus of having one foot in a grave and the other on a banana peel was something I saved for really obnoxious people who wouldn't drop the subject. The thought that I was a gold digging mercenary made them think twice about asking any more questions. Don't want to poke the bitch in the cage.

There is some hint of a shadow of a glint of hope that some day I will again share space with a partner, but I have a feeling I'll have to pay them for taking care of me and s/he will be called an aide/caregiver. Who knows? I have been wrong before. The right man and the right circumstances could help change my mind.

Nah!

Nonsequitor: Since writing the above, some news has landed in my email box. Attached was a contract for my novel and a W-9. In the contract was the breakdown of royalties and information about my advance. I sold the novel. I now have a contract and a check for the advance will follow as soon as they receive my signed W-9 and two copies of the contract. I sold the novel. I SOLD THE NOVEL!.

That is all. Disperse.