You've heard it, right? Think back to Sleepless in Seattle and the coffee break scene where the publishers discuss a book that says that women over 35 are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married. I have seen it in other movies and on TV too. I hear my friends discussing it, around the water coolers, at dinner, at dinner parties. I have never read the book, or an article, that actually claims this "Fact", but virtually everyone I know "knows" it for a fact. When the subject comes up, I reach for the tortilla chips or the mint chocolate chip ice cream to comfort my empty heart.
I got divorced when I was 26, and thought I had the whole world in front of me, certain that I would have to fight off marriage proposals left and right in order to maintain my hard-fought independence. All my friends predicted that I would be married again within a couple of years (these are the same friends who predicted that I would be pregnant before my HS graduation, then pregnant before I was 20 - and before I was married: I married at 20 and have never been pregnant). So I entered the Dating Zone in the prime of my life and thought I had the whole world and all of Time in front of me.
I dated a lot. Only one got kind of serious, but never even to the "I Love You" phase, probably because of my neurotic need to maintain that independence and to prove wrong my friends who wished me cornered again so quickly. While my friends were having babies, getting divorced and remarrying at an alarming rate (how do these women find and marry men so easily? And where do they find them? Please write the address down for me...), I am flitting from one New Interest to the Next-Best-Thing, but never finding The Best Thing, which was fine as I pursued my career and found The Perfect Apartment. I got a dog. But really what I got was an empty, lonely life.
I quit my job and went back to college at 36, moving into a dormitory at the university. On the outside and to anyone who asked, I did not move into the dormitory to do the Meet Boys thing (you can hear my foot stomping in protest here). I was a serious student on a fast track to my BS and then my MA degrees. Inwardly, though, I wonder, now that I am out of school, if I was hoping to Meet Boys, subconsciously? I tried to be Hip and keep up with my much younger dorm-mates, and, thankfully, very, very few ever made me feel old enough to be their mother, though I very quickly earned the moniker "Aunt Jane", which I had at home too (I have loads of nieces, nephews, great-nieces -nephews).
I never once went on a date in the 6 years it took for me to get my degrees.
Oh, I was asked, but my old Protective Shield had learned its lesson all too well, and I turned down any serious offer. The Shield that had kept me from letting relationships become too serious in my late 20s and early 30s had grown into a Force Field of Resistance that repelled even offers of coffee!
No wonder I remained single! I sought solace in my hard-won independence in food (what else do you do when you are alone?), and soon gained much, much more than the Freshmen 15, most likely as a subconscious defense mechanism: if I was overweight, men wouldn't want me, right? I couldn't get hurt by peeking around the Shield or venturing outside of the Force Field if no one invited me, right? I knew these clichés of psychology, knew that was why I reached every time for the Baskin Robbins instead of my gym card, but I was powerless to stop myself. I knew it in my head, but couldn't know it in my Here-And-Now, until I was 45, still single, and had a good Chubby going on. Until I came down with a life-altering disease, with no one to pick me up when I fell.
I ended up becoming that statistic: still single and 45, and terrorists lurk much more closely than ever before. I wasted all of those years adamantly demanding my independence instead of finding someone with whom I could share my life. I could have shared my life with a companion, a soul-mate, a lover, instead of having a great apartment, a dog, or a paper diploma on my wall. A companion could have helped me hang the diploma (straight), could have been proud with me for my accomplishment. Instead I wasted time too long, and became the statistic.
I am still looking for that book, or that article, that says that women over 35, or 45 in my case, are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to find true love. I guess all along I should have been looking for True Love instead of looking for the book...
