Daily Excerpt: 57 Steps to Paradise (Lorenz) - Introduction

 

Excerpt from 57 Steps to Paradise by Patricia Lorenz--INTRODUCTION

 

You’re probably wondering why a woman on Social Security and Medicare even entertained the idea of writing a book about men. I may be middle-aged or even stumbling toward old, but I’m not dead. I like men. Men have been walking, sliding, galloping, and slithering in and out of my life for over 50 years.

 

We women of the biggest generation in America, the Baby Boomers, are in the majority. We outlive men. I have already outlived my second husband who left me for an older woman, married her the day of our divorce, and then died two years later in 1989.

 

I have no idea if I’ll outlive my first husband. He’s seven years older than I am, and in the years since 1975 when I left him and moved out of state after seven tortuous years together, he never remarried. If he had, perhaps he’d look younger and have a healthier lifestyle. In the years since we divorced, he’s had some tough medical problems so who knows which one of us will check out first.

 

I also have no idea if I’ll outlive my third and current husband. Yes, ladies, I remarried in my 60s after 27 years of being single to a man nine years older. He’s probably not as healthy as I am and more overweight than I am so who knows which one of us will knock on the pearly gates first.

 

The fact is, there are many more baby boomer women than men alive today. Like most of those women, I like men even though I don’t have a great track record when it comes to choosing the right one to marry. My current situation is the exception.

 

I still believe that women never lose their interest in finding a good man to enjoy spending some of their time with. A good man to talk to. Make decisions with. Sleep with. Appreciate the things he does better and enjoy the things that we women do better. As long as he doesn’t smother me with too much togetherness, I definitely think being with someone you love is infinitely better than being alone. Being with someone you can’t stand? Forget it. In that case, the single life is the best life. So, our goal, then, is to find the right guy. Hopefully, this is the book that will help with that. Lord knows I’ve had plenty of experience.

 

Some people might think I either don't understand men or I'm not that comfortable around them. To my way of thinking, though, the fact that I've been married, divorced and annulled twice, and am currently on my third and hopefully my last marriage is proof enough that I have, at the very least, learned some helpful lessons about men over the years. Before this last time at the altar, I also wove my way in and out of two reasonably serious relationships. One lasted eight months, the other two-and-a-half years. Then, for 11 years I didn’t date anyone. I just worked to get my kids through college.

 

I’m the first to admit that when it comes to certain things, I don't have a clue to understanding men. The following might be a lame example, but I hope it will at least help explain the big difference between how some men think versus how I think. The task is a simple autumn activity: getting rid of leaves. Here's how I did it when I owned my own house with a 120x100-foot yard and at least 25 towering trees. First, I’d turn on my mulcher mower, mow the yard, and pulverize the leaves into smithereens, providing natural fertilizer for the grass. Then, I’d return the mower to the garage and enjoy a good book.

 

But that’s not the way I’ve seen many men do it. Having observed my dad, brother, uncles, cousins, ex-husbands, neighbors, and friends in their annual effort to get rid of leaves, here is how many of the men I’ve known approach this project. First, they buy a full-size Tony Deere lawn tractor with an 8-foot blade for grass cutting. Then, they buy a rider mower for tight spaces and a regular lawn mower for really tight spaces. After that, they fabricate a huge round leaf blower that also sucks up leaves, and they attach that to the rider mower. Their next purchase is a wagon to pull behind the rider mower to catch the leaves from the blower. They drive around the yard on the rider mower, sucking up leaves and blowing them into the huge wagon. Next, they dump the leaves in the corner of the yard and bag them into huge plastic bags, after which they distribute them to various trees and shrubs for mulch. When a giant wind blows them all over yard again, they repeat the four previous steps. Then, they climb onto their full-size Tony Deere tractor after attaching a new front-end loader to lift the bags of leaves to another part of the yard behind the shed so the neighbors can't see the bags. Then, a few months after that, using the front-end loader again, they bring the bags of leaves to the garage area where a new $1500 stick-and-leaf mulcher machine now resides, a machine that puts out 85,000 decibels of noise with each operation. They take the leaves out of the bags and carefully dump each bag into the new $1500 stick-and-leaf mulcher contraption. Finally, they take the mulched-up leaves and dump them into the new spreader attached to the full-size Tony Deere tractor and distribute them evenly around the yard to provide natural fertilizer.

 

It's a man thing. You gotta love a guy who will go to all that trouble. Think of the exercise he's getting, of his communing with nature, and his solving one little problem after another. Beats being a couch potato with a bag of Ruffles under each arm. But do you see my point? Men are totally different creatures than women and, come on, it’s not easy finding the right one to look at in the wee hours of the morning and say goodnight to late at night with a smile on your face, especially at my (our) age. I assume if you’re reading this book you’re in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s.

 

The truth is that I truly enjoy being around men. For a married woman, I do have many male friends: old ones, young ones, and middle-agers. Most of them are happily married, young enough to be my sons, priests, or married to my women friends. In other words, off limits. That’s why I like them so much. No sexual tension. Just interesting guy talk. I like to talk to men about everything from politics to religion, from projects in the garage to jokes they hear at work, from "what's wrong with the sump pump" to "let me tell you how to haggle with a used car salesman." I love to talk to men about school work, housework, woodwork, books, movies, landscaping, terrorism, and the state of the Union. I like to watch football with men.

 

For ten years, before I moved to Florida in 2004, I ran a crash pad in my home in Milwaukee for airline pilots. I had an empty nest and four extra bedrooms so often I'd have two, three, four, or maybe even five happily married airline pilots using the extra bedrooms in my house as their local crash pad. They all lived in other states but needed a place to crash in Milwaukee because they were all employees of Midwest Airlines, based at Milwaukee’s international airport. Since I lived seven minutes from the airport, it was a perfect arrangement. Snow White and the seven dwarfs.

 

Imagine kibitzing with different men off and on during every week of the year. Men who treat you with respect because they're a guest in your home. Men who make you laugh, fix things around the house, and clean up after themselves, including their own bathroom. Imagine having one or two good-looking, funny, handsome men hanging around your home, men who never, ever, ever, ever complained if I put a little dent in my car, smelled up the house with my garlic-infested cooking, or talked on the phone too much.

 

Indeed, my life as a single woman during those ten years that I ran the crash pad was downright joyful, thanks to those male pilots. Those men spoiled me when it came to looking for and dating men when I moved to Florida, that’s for sure. But I’m also sure that observing those 40 or so men who stayed in my crash pad during those ten years was very helpful when it came to choosing my third, and hopefully my final, husband.

 

So, yes, there's a big difference in the way men and women do things, think, react, solve problems, tackle projects, and communicate. Sometimes, the difference is unbelievable (see above leaf-removal example), and sometimes it's downright exasperating. Most of the time, though, the difference is marvelous. Thought-provoking. For me, anyway, it seems that as the years go by, it gets easier and easier to make friends with men. Because of that fact, my life is unbelievably interesting and happy.

 

However, this book is not just about how perfectly wonderful it is to be with a man. It’s about struggles, finding dates, enduring the long, long time it takes to get to know a man and deciding if you really, truly want to put up with their weird way of doing things in exchange for the truly amazing things about them that we women cherish. This book is about the good, the bad, the ugly, the cheap, the generous, the faithless, the blessed, the angry, the insecure, the positive, and the negative—true stories about various men who have crossed my path. This book is about getting-to-know-you conversations, adventures, and experiences with the men I’ve met, dated, admired, and banished (often after one date) in order to maintain my sense of happiness and self-worth so that you, too, can go down this path better informed.

 

Whether your dram is to find Mr. Perfect and get married or just to have a male friend and/or lover as your full-time companion, I hope and pray this book helps you do just that. The thing is, the older we get, the harder it is to find the right person. It’s also hard to decide if we middle-aged and older women even want to share our lives again with a man.

 

Sometimes, our children put a big kink in our plans. I have a friend whose father, a widower, remarried. My friend was dead-set against the marriage and now finds that her stepmother is in her own words, "Absolutely awful! She makes me feel like an outsider in my father's house. She wants my father all to herself and even had the nerve to get rid of some of Mother's furniture and linens."

 

Every time I see this woman she has more and more complaints about her stepmother. One time she was upset that her dad and her stepmother were spending two or three months in Florida every winter.

 

Funny thing though, whenever I see her dad and step-mom, they seem to be deliriously happy. The daughter is the only one who's miserable, wallowing in her selfishness, making herself unhappier every year.

 

Let me tell you about my own dad’s remarriage. In 1979, when I was pregnant with my youngest child, my mother died at age 57, in the prime of her life, of ALS. My mother was my best friend, and her death devastated me. Three years later, my Dad remarried. I'd only been with Bev a couple of times before the wedding, but each time I could tell how happy she and my Dad were together. I admit that I wondered how it would feel to have another woman living in the house my Dad built in 1947, the house that we children grew up in and that my mother had lovingly decorated all those years we were growing up. How would it feel to have another woman in Mother's home?

 

Even though I loved my mother deeply, I honestly believe an angel was sitting on Dad's shoulder when he met, dated, and married Bev. During the early years of their marriage, that same angel sat on my shoulder, reminding me to keep an open mind about my dad's new love.

 

Since their marriage I've seen firsthand that Bev is a gem, a beautiful human being whose optimistic personality and ready-to-do-anything-or-go-anywhere attitude add sparkle to my Dad's life. Together, they have traveled the country by car or plane, visiting Dad’s friends and relatives or going to his World War II reunions or antique car club get-togethers. Bev has just smiled and loved every minute of their adventures.

 

Over the years they redecorated nearly every room in the house. Thanks to Bev's beautiful taste, the home of my childhood is lovelier today than it was when I was growing up.

 

Three months after they were married Dad had a heart attack. Lovingly, Bev nursed him back to health and encouraged him to go walking or biking with her every day. They went dancing many Saturday nights, traveled the world together, and entertained their many combined friends and relatives.

 

Bev even understands how important it is for Dad to have plenty of time to putter out in the barn on his many projects. She likes to putter inside the house while he's in the barn so, like Jack Sprat and his wife, they get along fine.

 

In all the years of their marriage since 1982, I've never heard Dad and Bev have a serious argument. Oh, they tease each other every once in a while, but never sarcastically. They respect each other, and both seem completely happy and content with their lives as they enjoy their golden years together.

 

I don't even like to think about what life could have been like for my Dad all these years if he'd never met or married Bev. I honestly believe he'd be a sad, lonely, old man. Instead, because he had the courage in his 60s to move his life forward with a new woman and new love, he's a vibrant, healthy old codger who's as delightful and interesting as he is happy.

 

In 2015 when Dad was 95 and Bev 90 they both joined the YMCA and began to work out three times a week. After an hour of treadmill and exercise machines, they go out for lunch then home for a nap. What a life!

 

Over the years, I've gotten to know my stepmother increasingly better and realize she's the best thing that could have ever happened to Dad after Mom's death. I've also discovered that I'd truly like her as a person even if she weren’t married to my Dad. When I visit them in Illinois, she and I often spend more time together than Dad and I do.

 

These middle-and-older-years second marriages remind me of the miracle of the wine at the marriage feast of Cana. When the couple ran out of wine, Jesus turned water into wine. One of the servants exclaimed. "Master, you saved the best for last."

 

In the marriage feast, I think the good Lord often does save the best times for last even when it means starting over with a new spouse. I know one thing for sure. I'm just glad the good Lord gave me the courage to tuck the warm, wonderful memories I have of my own mother into the bottom of my heart and to allow the good, new feelings I have for my stepmother to blossom and flourish. I've learned that if we just open our hearts and minds to change, life seems to get better as we get older. I know it has for my Dad, thanks to Bev. Moreover, my father’s remarriage has taught me that finding a good man in mid-life and beyond is not only possible but quite probable if we women just keep our wits about us during the dating process.

 

I pray this book will offer encouragement for women who need a little push to get back on the bicycle after someone breaks your heart or a spouse dies. Believe me, my heart has been ripped to sharp little shards by a number of men who have stepped across the line and into my heart and psyche and then torn it every which way but healthy. I will share the pain with you. I will also share how I survived and moved on.

A good, healthy, happy relationship between a man and a woman is a precious, much sought-after gift. But it takes work. Lots and lots and lots and lots of work. Let me share what I’ve experienced and learned, and then prayerfully you’ll be able to get busy and open your heart to finding a man you, too, can cherish and be happy with. Did I mention it takes lots and lots and lots of work?

For more posts about Patricia and her book, click HERE.

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