I Survived: One Woman's Journey of Self-Healing and Transformation
Kay Kopit is an accomplished artist, actor, writer, speaker and gifted teacher.
My husband and I have been happily married for 17 years. What makes our relationship unique is that Bryan was born in 1960 the year after I graduated high school. He is 19 years my junior; I am older than his mother. The secret of our success is a deeply committed love for one another. Ours is a passionate romance. Each of us is whole, happy and healthy. Bryan and I have a love that keeps my spirit young. I am sharing our story to give older women hope that they too can find peace and love with a younger man.
We met in 1985 during a rainy winter in San Francisco. We were neighbors on a tiny street near the historic Mission Dolores. The worst storm of the season was on its way and my roof was leaking profusely. I was in dire straits financially, having been newly divorced. I was preparing to fix it myself. Unfortunately my ladder wasn't tall enough. I needed help. None of the folks I knew were home that Saturday morning but I noticed an open door directly across from my house. I hurried upstairs to the second story flat in the azure painted duplex and walked down the long corridor to the living room. There on the sofa was a guy watching the football game on T.V. I introduced myself and then proceeded to ask for his assistance. He looked at me like I was crazy. The silence was deafening. How often does a stranger enter your apartment with a request for help with a major repair? I was flushed with embarrassment but was in too deep to recover. Fortunately he agreed to help me.
This uncommon beginning signaled the magic that lay before us. The sparks flew. We went on our first date within days of this meeting. Bryan's car was broken so we took the bus across the city to an authentic Moroccan restaurant where we sat on paisley cushions and ate with our fingers. I remember clearly how primitive this felt and how natural it was to be with him. He didn't seem the least bit concerned about my age. I, on the other hand, was more sensitive. I was healing from a codependent relationship of 12 years and had never experienced true intimacy. I wasn't sure it was the proper thing to do but I couldn't help myself; I was falling in love. I was scared because these feelings were coming so quickly.
Bryan moved in with me within weeks of our first meeting. I remember thinking if it didn't work out it would be easy to ask him to leave because all he owned was a T.V.
so f
For Valentine's Day he created a hanging wire mobile in the shape of intertwined hearts and presented it to me with flowers and chocolate.
This type of thoughtful gesture is typical of Bryan. He has never missed a special occasion and has often surprised me with jewelry when he returns from a business trip.
One evening in the spring we were waiting to board a dinner train in Mendocino. A drunken man approached us and said, "How come you two are dressed up? Are you getting married?" Bryan looked at me and said, "Yes, we are aren't we?" That was his proposal. It was decided we would plan a wedding for later that year. But, first I needed to meet Bryan's mother.
Just the thought of it terrified me! Bryan and his mother, Sharon, have a truly special bond. He insisted he would not tell anyone about our engagement until she and I met. We drove to southern California where Sharon was visiting her sister, Bryan's aunt. I felt sick the entire trip. I knew in advance he was going to take his mother shopping the next morning alone to break the news to her. I couldn't sleep at all that night. What felt so "right" to Bryan and me was unusual, especially in the eyes of a parent. When they returned from their excursion Sharon looked like she had just come from a funeral. Fortunately, for me, Aunt Toby accepted the situation and eased the tension by giving me a white angel ornament. His mother is a wonderful woman. In spite of her disappointment, she welcomed me into their family. Over the years our relationship has evolved into a unique friendship, a cross between a peer and a sister.
December 7, 1986, dressed in an ivory colored Victorian gown, I was driven to our wedding in a horse drawn carriage. I remember the sensation well. As I heard the clip-pity clop of the hoofs hitting the pavement I felt it was the happiest day of my life. The ride was several miles long and I enjoyed cars honking loudly at every turn. When we arrived at the elegant Alamo Square Inn Bryan was waiting to escort me inside to the nuptials. It was a good thing he took my hand, for as I exited the carriage, my knees collapsed from shaking so hard. The day was spectacular marking a lifetime of love.
Both Bryan and I had always wanted kids. By the time we met my biological clock had run out. He told me he would rather marry a woman he loved deeply than to wait for someone to bear his children. For several years we were content to be a unit of two. After my dear Aunt Letha died in 1992 I longed for a child. I knew we would be good parents. Bryan agreed to adoption. It was an arduous experience requiring patience and resilience. We had several birthmothers who changed their minds for different reasons. This process took three years and a great deal of money. Ultimately we were blessed with a baby girl we named Mariah. Our daughter is now 8 years old and the light of our life.
Bryan continues to be my rock, strength and loving support. During our years together I have had many tragedies including: my brother John's suicide in 1988, my ex- husband Joey's death from alcoholism in 1989, and my girlfriend Debra's suicide in 2002. I was hospitalized with a potentially life threatening blood clot in my lungs in 1998. Bryan stood by me through all of these. I married a great guy! I am a fortunate woman to have found true love in the heart of a younger man.
Age is but a notch on the tree of life. Does it really matter that I have more than he. We are all on a spiritual path. We choose lovers, friends and family to mirror our soul's development. Partners of different ages can accelerate this growth. These diverse emotional experiences are opportunities of a lifetime. Let's enjoy them.
- Re: Incestuous Love...posted on 02/24/2010
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Bryan moved in with me within weeks of our first meeting. I remember thinking if it didn't work out it would be easy to ask him to leave because all he owned was a T.V. - posted on 02/24/2010
another one:
Two summers ago, I dated Connor, a big, blonde, Golden Retriever of a guy. I was twenty-nine. He was twenty. After our first date he asked, "So, Rach, what exactly are you doing dating a twenty-year old?"
I didn't have a good answer, so I said, "Well, what are you doing dating a twenty-nine-year old?"
He nodded ¡ª touch¨¦ ¡ª and we left it at that.
"I told my sister about you," Connor soon reported.
"And?" I prodded.
He gave me a look, then said, "She thinks you're a cougar."
Technically, I don't think I'm old enough to be a cougar. The consensus seems to be that cougars are "mature" women ¡ª in their forties or older ¡ª who date and dote on men who are significantly younger, as in a decade or more. Confirmation of the cougar as cultural phenomenon comes online at Gocougar.com, a dating site for older women and younger men, and at Urbancougar.com, a resource guide that every week features a profile of a particularly hot cougar, usually accompanied by somewhat disturbing shots of her in lingerie. There's even an article on the AARP website with a photo of a seventy-something redhead in a tight dress, brandishing a Cosmo, entitled "Cougars and Their Cubs."
Perhaps a woman in her late thirties who dates a guy in his early twenties we could consider a precocious cougar, but I think that we're casting the net a bit too wide when I could be emblazoned with the scarlet C at the tender age of twenty-nine. I prefer to think of myself as "having range."
At twenty-nine, it seemed to me equally appropriate and acceptable to date men either in their forties or their twenties, but when I met Connor, way too young was the thought that came to mind, a mantra I practiced as a college English teacher. Despite the gravitational pull I felt toward him, I discounted Connor immediately as a potential beau ¡ª he was not just twenty, but downright boyish in his flip-flops and designer hoodies.
I saw Connor, and I thought Why not?
In spite of this, we always made a point to say hello when we ran into each other, after which we wrapped each other in a full-contact hug. He addressed me as sweetheart. I told him that he looked cute in yellow.
Our innocent fascination with each other continued for months until one day in February, after another dreary Valentine's Day, when something changed. I saw Connor, and I thought Why not? Enough of the weekday academia and weekend loneliness. After all, he wasn't one of my students, and I was moving in a matter of months anyway. What would it hurt to date the kid? I experienced what New Agers would call an "energetic shift," and Connor took the cue.
"I'm taking you out, Rach!" he blurted one night when we were with a group of friends at the local diner. It came out sounding kind of like a question, as if Connor were as surprised as I that he had the nerve to say this. As he recorded my number in his cell phone, he crooned "Yoooo-der," my last name.
Our evident and effortless attraction to each other was not logical. A dating service would not have paired us with one another; mutual friends would not have thought to set us up. I had a master's degree, taught college writing classes, liked foreign film, and ate organic food. Connor had a GED, worked as a wilderness guide, watched cage fighting, and chain-smoked. And, of course, there was the omnipresent matter of our ages.
But it was, bottom line, fun being with Connor. He'd say, "Let's do something," and I'd ask, "Like what?" and he'd say, "I don't know, just get in the car and drive." We'd go to the grocery store and volley beach balls in the seasonal aisle. We'd drop in on friends later than was polite. We'd drive up to Thumb Butte, Connor barreling through the potholes, and find a place to camp. He took to calling me The Professor and texted me song lyrics. He insisted on trying to bench press me, then swung me around upside-down and finally pinned me to the wall. Honestly, it was a very wholesome, pure romance in the beginning.
"But you know what people are thinking," Connor sometimes worried. Yes, I did. They were thinking that our bond was purely about sex ¡ª kinky, sweaty, marathon sex ¡ª lots of it. Fair enough, but that came much later, and was only part of the attraction.
This is how I think cougars are most often misrepresented, as one-dimensional creatures, predatory women on the prowl for supple young men with whom to engage in carnal, animal sex. But it wasn't the sexual stigma that I worried about when Connor's sister labeled me a cougar; at this point, "cougar" seems more tabloid than taboo. What bothered me was the way that older-woman-dating-younger-man often turned into a lampoon. I didn't want to be laughed at, or pitied. I didn't want conclusions to be drawn by others.
But in the beginning, even I couldn't bring myself to fully legitimize this relationship. When I told my friend Sarah about Connor, I felt the need to call him "The Twenty-Year Old." With my sister, it was simply "The Boy." And with my friend Megan, Connor was known as "The Beef," so dubbed because of his Midwestern, corn-fed heft and my proclivity for late-night hamburgers. I had a hard time taking myself, or our thing, seriously. I was self-conscious: Exactly what kind of twenty-nine-year old woman dates a twenty-year old guy? I tried not to overanalyze, or even analyze at all. I didn't want to know what my attraction to Connor ¡ª the fact that I was really happy with him, that I not only put up with but enjoyed his adolescent antics ¡ª meant about me and my own psychological make-up or maturity.
- Re: Incestuous Love...posted on 02/25/2010
- posted on 02/25/2010
I realized that love has no age. It just is.
I always wanted a cat to love. In fact, I used to catch wild kittens and dress them up in bonnets. I would stuff them in my baby carriage and wheel them around until my mother caught me and set them free. I was allergic to animals and when I played with them, I would end up in the emergency room with an eyeball swollen shut, but I kept on trying to capture and tame one. In the city they were plentiful. I always blamed my craziness on the fact that my mother would not let me have a cat. Dolls bored me.
We moved to the suburbs when I was in the fifth grade. It was safe and nice. I hated it. Wild cats were nowhere to be found. The city didn¡¯t bore me. Men who were geniuses but who had idiosyncrasies didn¡¯t bore me either. I tried to love the normal ones but I just couldn¡¯t. I blamed my mother for that too.
I am a widow. I have had two husbands. The first one divorced me. He was a musician. The second one was a doctor. He died young; I found that there was no one my age to play with. The men I met were all young or married with a wandering eye or old. Any one my age, who was not a lunatic, was still married.
After six months it got lonely. Against my better judgment, I kept dating a younger guy. I thought he could be my movie-going buddy. We had nothing in common, at first. I kept telling him I was not for him. Of course, I fell in love with him. I realized that love has no age. It has no eyes. It is chemical It is spiritual. It has no reason. It just is. It can go as quickly as it descends. It is not ¡°a streetcar named desire.¡± It is a freight train.
He had a cat. The cat's name was Lucinda, after Lucinda Williams, but the cat would not answer to it so he called her kitty. She kept tripping the alarm on a job site so he rescued her. He put her in a box because she was wild and he took her home. A feral, abandoned cat is never normal.
At first she scratched at me and would only let him pet her and only on the back of the head and neck. He knew her lovey spots. It has taken me five years to learn her language. She comes to me now when she wants to be petted. She comes to my side of the bed in the morning and wakes me. I feed her her favorite wet food, of which she only licks the gravy and then eats the meat. She is like I was when I used to lick the inside of the Oreo and then eat the cookie. We have an understanding kitty and me. I spoil her and he scolds her. She is our baby.
I had to get allergy shots when he moved in. He had to get along with my children who are grown but visit often. He has learned their cues. They like him.
I told him that if he dies on me I will have to go up to the Wawa at 5am and flirt with working men in combat boots. We have been inseparable for five years. He makes me puurrrrr. Intellectually, I know that the surest way to kill love is to capture it and tame it and put it in a box¡ however, I persist in trying. I still blame my mother.
- posted on 02/25/2010
maggie may
Wake up Maggie
I think I got something to say to you;
it's late September and I really should be back at school.
I know I keep you amused
but I feel I'm being used
oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried anymore.
You lured me away from home
just to save you from being alone.
You stole my heart and that's what really hurts.
The morning sun
when it's in your face
really shows your age
but that don't worry me none
in my eyes you're ev'rything.
I laughed at all of your jokes
my love you didn't need to coax
oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried anymore.
You lured me away from home
just to save you from being alone.
You stole my soul
that's a pain I can do without.
All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand
but you turned into a lover
and
Mother
what a lover !
You wore me out.
All you did was wreck my bed
and in the morning kick me in the head
oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried anymore.
You lured me away from home
'cause you didn't want to be alone.
You stole my heart
I couldn't leave you if I tried.
I suppose I could collect my books and get back to school.
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool.
Or find myselfe a rock and roll band that needs a helpin' hand.
Oh
Maggie
I wish I'd never seen your face.
You lured me away from home
just to save you from being alone.
You stole my heart and that's what really hurts.
The morning sun
when it's in your face
really shows your age
but that don't worry me none
in my eyes you're ev'rything.
I laughed at all of your jokes
my love you didn't need to coax
oh
Maggie
I couldn't have tried any face
you made a first-class fool out of me
but I'm as blind as a fool can be
you stole my heart but I love you anyway.
Maggie
I wish I'd never seen your face.
I'll get on back home one of these days.
- posted on 02/27/2010
You don¡¯t get involved with a young man to have long, meaningful conversations. For that, we have plenty of damaged, older men in our lives.
Everyone knows when a woman finds herself alone in her forties and fifties, she's too old for men her own age (and even for those in their seventies). But believe it or not, a lot of twentysomething guys are attracted to menopausal babes. They like us because, unlike their female contemporaries, we don't want to marry them. Adopt, maybe but marry, no.
Younger men like being with older women because they think we're all sexually jaded. Right up front, they'll ask if you've ever "done it" with another woman or it you have a shoebox under your bed brimming with every sex toy imaginable.
You can meet younger men anywhere. At a gala charity event, your eyes meet his, smoldering, across a crowded room. Attired in an Armani tux, he approaches you and slips a glass of Dom Perignon into your trembling hand. He lingers for a moment--and then turns to serve the other guests at this catered affair. Sometimes you don't even have to leave your apartment - they come right to your front door, delivering pizza or installing a new intercom. They're sweet and friendly and the next thing you know, you're running into that cute Federal Express guy over and over again in your neighborhood.
When a young man casually suggests you "hang out" together sometime, make no mistake - that is an overture.
When he lures you back to your own place and chances are he will since a young man usually has roommates or even his own mother lurking in his abode, you'll want to have the perfect snacks on hand. In the supermarket, you'll find yourself fingering the Drakes Cakes and Hostess Ding Dongs.You never allowed your own kids to eat junk like this, but for a young man you bring things like Buffalo Wing-Flavored Pork Rinds into your home. Beer? The last time you quaffed the stuff was in 1969, when you threw up on your own shoes. (What label does a young man drink - the selection in 2010 is mind altering - whatever happened to good old Rhinegold?)
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