Valentine’s Day comes once a year, but the issue of celebrating romance and building relationships as we age is something that can be an ongoing quest for many of us. In my books, collected as “Venus as She Ages” I have explored how to be in a relationship and still be free to explore one’s own growth fully. Celebrating individualism is a key component to successful relationships – whether taking the conventional route or exploring other types of romancing. Much is written about younger romance, but the topic of romance for older women is a topic far less discussed. The ratio of aging women to eligible men can make it even more challenging.
Valentine’s Month is a perfect time to celebrate the individual by doing things that will add a little love to your day. Rather than limit the celebration to one day, make it a month to celebrate life. The happier we are, the more likely we are to attract, anyway.
Following are some suggestions for how to be in love with life.
- Take yourself out on a date.
This is a challenge now. No live music or theatre or movie house (well there are in some places). Go out to dinner with a best friend or best lover. Wear your mask and go to a make up counter you love and they’ll let you smell the new perfumes. Go to a bookstore and look around. It feeds the soul. In your apartment, play your favorite music. Loud. Pink Floyd’s GREAT GIG IN THE SKY will make you celebrate being a woman. So will the adagio in Mahler’s Fourth.
2. Call an old lover or current wonderful lover and make some jokes.
If it’s cold outside, call your old lover who once insisted you move to Montevideo to get away from the law and tell him he was right! Whatever. The point is to laugh. Old loves never really go away. If we love someone, we’ll always love them and they, us, and even if they’re married now, they’ll be happy to laugh and remember being younger or happy at one time, and grateful you remembered them. If it’s a new love, call up to joke about anything.
3. Flirting is on all the time.
Buying a coffee? Say thank you and smile at the person, male or female. It’ll warm you and warm them. Notice if someone is wearing a great hat or jacket. Comment. A woman was once buying herself flowers, she was a youthful 95 at the time, and she smiled at a man buying flowers for his wife or someone, and he ended up paying for her flowers! Now that’s being in love with life. We can do it too! Give, give, give of your positive energy. It bounces back like cupid’s arrow.
4. Get in the bathtub with a good book.
Hot water. Some bath salts if you can, and a great book. Ask your friends for recommendations. Ten pages of a great book will make you feel in love with life. Guaranteed. Make it a great writer because great language enhances the synapses and great language is like music and a movie all in one and you’ll feel more alive and ready for love wherever you find it.
5. Walk somewhere.
Mandatory. Even if it’s cold. Put on an ugly hat that keeps you warm. Comfy shoes and just take in the sights. If you’re in a city, there’s what’s going on on every block. If you’re in the country, there’s those trees chatting away with their lovely arms. Just moving your body will engender pheromones of love. And just moving forward will feel as if life is ON.
6. For the ultimate love shot, do something for someone else.
Shop for them. Surprise someone with flowers. Send an unexpected gift. Extend an invitation. Offer to do something charitable. You’re the one who’s going to be made happy and excited about this wonderful thing called life which is love. Recently I’ve been on a project where all have invested time for no money but we’re cooking up something and that generosity of all of us, feels like an army that could win the Pelloppenesian wars. What’s driving us? Love for what we do and respect for each other and love for doing it together. Powerful combo. Deep down, it’s really just all of us are in love with being alive and affirming it to the other and ourselves.