Widows Living Double Lives---Or Not

Sometimes I wonder if the whole world isn’t walking around showing something different on the outside than they feel on the inside. Robin Williams, for example, before he killed himself seemed driven to entertain people to the point he was living a double life. I guess a few close friends knew he suffered from depression but he was either: A) keeping a stiff upper lip, as they used to say, or B) was afraid he’d do what he ultimately did if he let go of his public persona. That’s an over simplification, I know, because he’d also been known to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol which only complicates an already complicated human condition. All I know for sure is being admired and loved, having opportunities, having close friends and ‘stuff’ and enough money to pay your bills doesn’t give you immunity against feeling something is missing in your life. 

I got a pedicure on Saturday and the girl was twenty minutes late getting me started. She apologized and went on to explain that the woman scheduled before me---another widow---was late for her appointment. According to the pedicurist, who knows the woman’s family, the widow has become a recluse since her husband died and has done nothing but drink beer and get drunk this past year. Her family is worried. “She needs to get involved with the widows over at the senior hall,” I told her. “They have tons of activities…” blah, blah, blah I went on to sing their praises. I told the same thing to my hair stylist recently because she’s was worried about her mother being alone and depressed. Later, my hairdresser came to the senior hall with her mother---a daughter helping her mother get over the fear of meeting new people. She reminded me of a parent walking a child to the first day of kindergarten. These two widows aren’t living a double life, they wear their misery on their sleeves. 

Monday I went to a crazy class at the senior hall, a demonstration on all things related to granola. How bored did I have to be last February when I signed up for that class? Massively so but I went anyway even though Monday I didn’t give a wit about granola (says the woman who bought $17.00 worth of ingredients). So there I sat learning how to mix twigs and nuts, knowing full well I still have a bag of unopened, pinhead oats from the last time I took one of these better eating classes. It’s sitting right next to a bag cookies---opened and replaced several times since the oats found their way inside freezer. At least when I die and they clean out my kitchen they’ll think I tried to eat healthy. Appearances are important. Oh, God, is that proof that I’m living a double life? Which is better, being a Molly Mope-Face 24/7 or being a Mary Sunshine in public and a Molly Mope-Face in the dark of night where cookies have been known to get mistaken for human hugs? 

Tuesday I was back to the hall for the annual spring cleaning day. Over 700 paying members---$15.00 a year---and only twenty showed up for cleaning day. What does that say about us twenty? I don’t know about the others but it says that I don’t volunteer much for the fun duties like being a door greeter or pouring coffee so it doesn’t kill me to get down and dirty once a year. They ask those of us who are able, to volunteer for at least two things a year and my second commitment is coming up in May. I’ll be helping with the Mother’s Day luncheon. It’s fitting that I work it since I’m not a mother who needs honoring. I did learn one interesting thing about volunteers when I worked this luncheon last year; twelve men showed up to set up the tables and chairs and to take them down afterward. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen that many men at the hall at the same time. Guys: Take a note. If you're looking for a second chance at love, skip online dating. Join a senior hall. You’ll be surrounded by single women.

Once in a while one of those guys will sit next to me at a lecturer. He’s a fuddy-duddy sort of guy who loves to cook and garden and he comes with no x-spouse baggage aka dead or divorced women in his life. Okay, that could mean he’s gay or maybe he was a wild flowerchild in his youth who “lived in sin” with the love of his life. Maybe his mamma killed off all his girlfriends like in a movie I saw recently on TV. Don’t you wish living people came with QR codes like they’re putting on tombstones now? You could hold your cell phone up to a person’s QR code and see their entire history. It will happen one day in a galaxy far, far away. People will have embedded electronic IDs that prevents teens from buying beer, old people from driving cars and people from living double lives. Like cows now have computer chipped ear tags that decide what vitamins and how much food each cow gets, our QR codes will force treatments and restrictions on the Robin Williams’ of the world and we’ll all live mundanely even-tempered ever after. So says the keepers of Orwellian conspiracy theories and, sadly, that could put Nabisco and Dos Equis out of business. ©