There was this dream I had...

"If I can't have you, I don't want nobody - Baby!"

Well, it has been a long time since Frank died. But seriously, folks, whoever is out there in the nether world reading the cranky discourse I'm about to undertake, to quote Bette Davis in "All About Eve": Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

My mother is worried about me. She and my cousin Frances announced, about 2 months after Frank died, that they thought I should marry again. Very nice idea, and very considerate of them. My children also think it would be all right if I married again. Also, very considerate of them. My question is, and always will be: Why?

I've been married twice, divorced one and buried one. Do I want to go through either circumstance again? No. In Prague, where I currently reside, the Czech men who are my age look as if they have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. The expat community is another story: the men my age are running after girls half my age. Therefore, I should look for a younger man - Right? Wrong! Why do I want a younger man? Why do I want or need a man at all?

Raised in a society where a woman was not a "real woman" unless she married and had children (during the fifties for all you young'uns out there), I rejected those ideas long before it became fashionable during the late 1960s. My favorite expression in my teenage years was: I'm not interested in dirty diapers and dish-pan hands. I was more interested in what was being discussed by the men in the living room rather than what was being discussed in the kitchen by the women. Yes, I was an aberration in my very Italian family.

True, I married young. But, in those days pre-sexual revolution, I was in lust. That was what was available to me at the time. So, I married. I quickly divorced. No children, no guilt, no pain. He found someone more suitable to his tastes and ended up with a 19 year old girlfriend at the age of 35, with his wife at home taking care of the kids. Glad I left him. I didn't want to marry again. I didn't like "marriage" because it changes people. I didn't trust the concept, knowing full well that the institution nullifies a woman's right to independence. Before marriage I had my own credit cards. Once married, I changed my name on the credit cards. After my divorce, changing my status back to single, I had to develop a new credit line and prove, all over again, that I was a good risk. They were my fucking credit cards to begin with! Damn it!

It took me a long time, having kissed a lot of frogs, before I found my prince. He was older, stable and not intimidated by me. He actually liked my style. After having two children, we decided it would finally be time to marry. We knew each other for three years before we had our first date, and we loved talking to one another. We trusted one another, we liked one another, we respected one another and, low and behold, a love came from that unlike any other.

So, now, do I want to be an appendage on the arm of another man? Do I want to change my name yet again? Do I really need this shit? Yes, it's true that I'm sick of playing computer games and I do go out as much as I can stand it (quite happy in my apartment - alone or with friends), love theater, opera, concerts, dancing, cooking and baking for friends. I have many interests and still work at my advanced age, but looking forward to retirement so I can follow my own interests. But do I want to fall in love again? What for? Do I want to share my time with a "special friend", why not... if the right person shows up at my door I will be happy to cook for him, dance with him, make love to him and then send him on his way if he's a mind to go that way. I'm free, love being free and would hate to impose my will on another human being. Frank liked me that way. He always knew that he could leave at any time, married or not, and he chose to stay. That's real commitment. That's life the way I like it, and it will remain so. I will come and go as I choose.

Well, Max and Monkey were right - I do feel better having written this down.