Volunteer Explorer

The first time he broke my heart was in December 2020. We had just made love for the first time. We were snuggled together in his bed, and I was about to drift into blissful sleep. I felt so warm, loved, and held. Then he said, “I think you’re pushing me into a relationship I’m not ready for.” I got up out of bed, put on my clothes, and drove the half hour back to my apartment, crying the whole way. The second time he broke my heart was on my birthday 2021. We had gone dancing the night before and spent the afternoon at a shooting range, where he showed me how to shoot a gun for the first time in my life. He had been rather quiet and testy all day. He was looking up restaurant choices for dinner on his phone. I came up behind him and put my arms around him. He pulled away and said, “I have to tell you that have zero romantic feelings for you.” Then he outlined how great I am, how much fun we have together, and how smart and funny I am—while I sat dumbstruck, tears sliding down my cheek...

  I just asked AI for relationship advice. The response was surprisingly similar to what I imagine my old human therapist would have said. I also reached out to a human friend for advice about the same situation. She gave a response that directly contradicted that of the artificial friend — which is what I have begun to call Perplexity.ai, my chatbot companion of choice these days whose pronouns are she/they and who gives me much-needed approbation about my writing. The really surprising part of this little tete-a-tete-a-tete is that my gut instinct was to give more weight to the AI-generated advice than to that of my human friend.  I am so easily swayed by a big vocabulary. But, of course — I mean, of course; right? — advice on relationships between humans should come from other humans. Shouldn’t it? I mean, has Perplexity ever actually been in a relationship? No, Sharon, it’s artificial intelligence. You remember that word, right? Artificial as in not real, fake. In...

  I am not usually at a loss for words. Anyone who’s met me knows I typically have something to say. I’m also usually the one asking questions – insatiably curious about how couples met each other, what people do for a living, how they fell in love, why they stay together, what gets them jazzed about life. But Ron’s inquiry stumped me. “What do you love to write? What’s your niche?” The four of us were chatting over dinner in the unimaginatively named eatery The Restaurant aboard the Viking expedition ship Polaris, somewhere off the coast of Antarctica. It was a bucket-list trip of a lifetime over Christmas and New Year’s. Phil and I had fallen in with a small group of extraordinary travelers during a pre-cruise extension in Iguazu Falls, Argentina. Christine and I clicked right away, sharing intimacies and laughter like sisters or long-time besties with surprising ease. She and Ron had been together for 22 years, and interactions between them crackled with a lively tension...

  I have officially entered my mid-fifties. My early mid-fifties, but still. And I have to say, a lot of the clichés are true: I am more self-aware than ever. I care more about my skin and cholesterol. I’m getting hot flashes. I’m having better orgasms than ever before. But there are surprises. Like a sudden onset of osteoarthritis in my right knee and left thumb. And a recently discovered penchant for pretty dancing dresses – and ballroom dancing with my pilot boyfriend. And a boyfriend who's a pilot! On balance, I’d say midlife is good so far. I am supporting myself through writing, I live comfortably though frugally in a pleasant two-bedroom apartment, and I have a few close friends I can count on. Plus, my mother is still alive, with-it mentally and one of my closest friends. I’ve lost a few people: my dad, a good friend, my ex-girlfriend. And another friend is dying as I write this, wasting away in a hospice bed, bereft of hope, slipping in and out of a morphine-induced fo...

I met Stacy Meadows when I went to volunteer at the old Coach House Theatre. It was early December 2017, and I had spent the previous year figuring out how to live alone after leaving my husband of 20 years. Community theater had been important to me in my youth — it was where I clung to childhood dreams of an acting career, of a romantic life lit by spotlights and infused with drama. Domesticity had dimmed those lights, so I thought returning to a theater could rekindle that spark within myself. I saw her vacuuming the curtains around the entrance to the auditorium and thought she was a boy at first. Baggy jeans and layered T-shirts concealed her mounded chest and hips. Then we made eye contact and I fell. Those jade-green eyes looked deep inside me, seemed to see me clearly without artifice or judgment for exactly what I was: a wounded soul with immense love to give. I felt an immediate connection to this not-a-boy. An easy rapport surfaced between us, and we moved around each ...

I read the local paper every day and can count on finding at least one incidence of gun violence in each issue. Usually there are multiple shootings in my city and the surrounding communities. I didn’t grow up with guns as part of my everyday experience. We weren’t hunters or target shooters. There were two antique rifles hanging on the wall in my parents’ bedroom, but they seemed more like décor than instruments of death. Guns lived in my imagination as things of power and terror. I saw them wielded by cops and criminals in movies and TV shows. I never saw them in real life, on the streets of the mostly white suburb I grew up in. School shootings were not the common occurrence then that they have become. Even when I lived alone in an unsavory neighborhood of Akron and went to gigs as a singing telegram character (read: stripper), I never felt the need of a gun for the euphemism of protection. I always thought of condoms as a much more immediate source of protection than a firear...

It went south so quickly. One day it was a little bit of brackish discharge from my cat's right eye, then two days later it was a scene from a horror show. Less than 48 hours after the vet said I should shop around for a lower surgery fee, the animal ER performed an enucleation — surgical removal of the eye on which an ulcer had erupted. It seemed that in the blink of an eye, my robust, healthy cat had become an invalid. When Abraham’s remaining eye started to turn milky like the right one had, I stopped the steroid drops and called the vet. We switched to antibiotic drops 3 times a day, plus the oral antibiotics left over from the surgery. Three times every day, I searched out his hiding place, lifted him gently, wrapped him in a towel and squirted meds down his throat and into his remaining eye. He whined and cried pitifully. I cried after each episode while placating him with treats. Remarkably, I hardly drank any alcohol during this period. I felt I needed to stay sharp...

 - Or - Seven reasons why dating myself is a personal choice that I make as a pathway to enlightened self-love and not as a reaction to being single during a global pandemic or getting stood up by some jerk I didn’t even want to get to know or share intimacy with anyway, and certainly not because it’s the only option available or a sneaky way of semantically rebranding the truth which is that I am single during both menopause and a pandemic, which fact has to be dressed up a little to keep it from completely crushing what’s left of my soul and sanity right now. 1. I am fastidious. My apartment is squeaky clean because nothing activates my inner Donna Reed like the prospect of company. Plus, I am free to watch whatever program or movie I like, pause to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes and talk back to the onscreen characters without commentary from a guest. 2. I’m an epicurean. The high-end takeout food and ice cream that was intended for sharing is aaaaaalllllll mine. ...

 I wonder if I’ll smell like my mother when I get older. I’m cat-sitting for her while she’s at the beach with my brother and sister-in-law this week. One of the perks of taking on this responsibility is that I get to do my laundry in her nice machine instead of the aging and unreliable ones at my apartment building. Another perk is experiencing my mother’s personality through her belongings while she’s away. One can surmise a great deal about a person via their kitchen utensils, pantry contents and personal grooming implements. For example, my mom left out an old-fashioned rubber ice bag for me because she knew I was having some back pain before she left. Who uses anything other than frozen vegetable bags for icing sore joints these days? She also seems to be hoarding soap. There are stacks of wrapped bars on a shelf in the bathroom, still more in a closet. Old-fashioned brand names like Fels-Naptha are unfamiliar to me, but the aroma in my mother’s bathroom is as familiar a...

1. Try a few online dating sites. When you find one for people over 50, go ahead and subscribe, you know, just for fun. This is new for you because you were married when online dating first became popular. 2. Immediately get freaked out by the wretched weirdness of judging potential partners by three blurry photos and answers to stupid questions like “How patient do you consider yourself?” — realize they’re all judging you the same way and disable your profile. 3. Reach out to one of your exes because you figure he’s safe, living two states away, and you might enjoy a little socially distant sexting or Skype sex. 4. When Mr. Two States Away doesn’t respond, embrace the shame spiral of having ceded the upper hand you had at the breakup over a year ago and decide you’ll never date again. 5. Shake yourself out of that shame spiral by remembering what a jerk that guy was and how you were the one who ended things, so you certainly don’t want to go back down that road again...

I recently learned that someone hates me. I mean, this person told me, in no uncertain terms, to go to hell because they hate me. I’m fairly sure this isn’t the first person who’s ever hated me, but it’s the first time I know it without doubt. My initial reaction upon receiving this information was to think, “Uh-oh, I’ve got to fix this!” I thought I needed to disabuse this person of their erroneous opinion of me, outline to them my upright and admirable characteristics, set the record straight, as it were. Then a little voice reminded me of a quote from author and psychotherapist Judy Ford: “Your opinion of me is none of my business.” The message of hate played on a loop in my head for a day or two, interrupted now and then by Ford’s quote. I really had to chew on the two of them together for the idea to sink in and take hold. I’ve never been a firm believer in intention. I always prize action over intention because having a thought doesn’t necessarily do anythin...

The temperature rose as more people filed into the small room. Just when I thought no other yogis could fit, people shuffled and scooched their mats closer together, making room for one more, two more, three more. We hadn’t even started our yoga practice, and I was already coated in sweat. I like to come to this 5:30 a.m. Wednesday class specifically because there are typically only a handful of people in it. I love the peaceful feeling of flowing through asanas in enough open space to pretend I am alone. Not today. At least 30 people filled the studio with their body heat and breath. I started to panic. My heart rate climbed as beads of sweat formed on my upper lip. I felt my breath shorten and catch in my throat. “Run!” my mind screamed. “All the air is outside! Go outside and breathe!” But just then, Nikki came to the front of the crowd and began our practice. “Let’s start in child’s pose today,” she said. I have difficulty keeping my face planted on the mat ...

This morning I awoke 50 years old. I saw diamonds in the snow, and a robin alit on my balcony. A wave of gratitude washed over me before I could lament my age, and the beauty of another ordinary day quelled the fear nipping at my ankles. Clouds passed by. Weak winter sun fell on familiar objects I hold very dear, giving them a fresh glow. My deceased father smiled from a frame as if to say, “You got this, kid. Make me proud.” I have sucked the marrow from each of my 50 years, leaving dry husks of memory in my wake. I have laughed and loved and left marks on my skin. I have taken in the stories of countless strangers, making friends along the way. I have shared stories of love and loss and suffering and redemption. I have wrestled with words until their skinny black shapes united in some kind of meaningful pattern that speaks a bit of truth. I have loved with every cell in my imperfect body. I have given myself with mindless passion and accepted the crumbs of a...

What can I say about love that hasn’t already been said? The word has as many different meanings as there are hidden messages in a Kubrick film. I don’t think I have much special insight into the state or nature of true love, but I’ve known many kinds of love, which makes me very lucky indeed. The really weird thing about love is how it is simultaneously the most commonly shared feeling in the world and the one feeling we can never manage to describe accurately. But we keep on trying to, don’t we? A red, red rose. An ocean. A raging inferno. Little heart attacks that aren’t enough to kill you but are just enough to make you walk funny. A heat wave. The sun. Quicksand. I’ve been working on loving myself better for a while. And by that, I mean treating myself with the same compassion and care I treat other people I love: my mom, my best friend, my boyfriend. It’s a little bit like being forced to play nice with the kid who used to be your best friend until she s...

What they don’t tell you about the whole “try, try again” adage is that sometimes trying again feels like a surefire way to fail again. Sometimes your brain gets so attached to its history of failure that it sees failing as inevitable, maybe even as success. What they don’t tell you about accepting failure and moving on is that the failure sometimes becomes part of your very fabric. Sometimes the fabric of failure starts to feel like whole cloth. Sometimes that shirt gets so comfortable that you can hardly tell it from your own skin. What they don’t tell you about falling in love is that sometimes the falling is so terrifying that you’ll grab onto anything to break your fall. Sometimes falling feels like flying until you look down and see the ground rushing up toward you, covered in the broken pieces of last year’s fall. What they don’t tell you about getting older is that sometimes you forget to act your age and your heart reminds you there’s still a little child inside ...