Just One More Lovely Time

AM I DREAMING, or does something like ninety percent of the general population get married at some point during life's course, while ten percent never marry? something like that. I am among the ten percent. You never know though, its never too late. Late in life marriages are less uncommon than you might think. the thing is, I don't want to find a soul mate any more now than I ever did, which is not at all.

You can be perfectly healthy, heterosexual, and active in the community, and never marry. When asked to explain my behavior, or lack thereof, my mother tells them "he isn't married because he's smart." Go mom!

When you've put a few decades under yout belt, and have been active within the community, but never married, chances are you have some good stories to tell, and some good memories. Or at least, memories.

I met Lori when i was twenty five, and she was twenty. She was engaged to be married, to a nice guy about her age. I met her through her brother, a high school classmate and friend of mine, quite by accident.

Shortly after her wedding, she started calling me, and inviting me over for dinner. She started doing this nearly every evening. I always accepted, though I was surprised every time I got the call. Why would a young newly wed invite me to cinner every night?

After dinner Lori and I would sit on the couch, snuggling. Her husband was on the other side of the room in an easy chair. everyone seemed happy. again, I thought this strange, but went with it. Who am I to complain, or be an ungrateful guest?

This went on all summer, and all three of us got along just fine. I kept thinking aobut having them over for dinner at my place, but I was living with my mother, and didn't think they would go for that. Each time I got another invitation, I figured they would come to their senses, and it would be my last, but the routine went on, all summer long.

Finally, about world series time, it stopped. The invitations came to an end. Sad as I was, it seemed inevitable. My friendship with Lori was over, never to be the same again. Over the next thirty five years I spoke to her only a couple of times. Her marriage lasted about five years, long beyond our friendship. She then went on to a happy life of serial monogamy. I went on to a life of brief, close encounters of the third kind.

Who's to say why people do what they do, other than the people who do it, and they will never say? Maybe Lori was a bit shell shocked at being married at such a young age, and her befriending me was her way of expressing a last little bit of independence before settling in for the long, confining haul. Or maybe she was irressitably attracted to my charms.For me it didn't matter one way or the other. It was just one more lovely time.

The women play a peripheral but prominent part of my life. They are the stuff of which memories are made! And wehn I am lying and dying on my death bed, I hope to let them all pass through my consciousness, just one more lovely time.