Sixty one, still leading, and not an unusual thing to be

Two things happen when a woman my age posts here. The first is that a certain kind of man writes to tell me how refreshing it is, at length, in a way that makes it clear the interesting thing is the number. The second is that a great many people assume I am finished and here out of nostalgia.

Sixty one, north of the river, thirty two years leading, the longest arrangement nineteen years and ended when he died four years ago. I am not finished, I am not nostalgic, and I am not a category.

What has actually changed with age is that I am much faster at knowing. Where I once gave somebody four months to reveal himself, I now know within three letters, and I am right more often than I used to be. I also want less. One man, one or two days a week, a set of duties that run in the background, and long stretches where nothing needs to be arranged at all.

I have no interest in proving I still have energy, and I would like not to be asked about it. I have no interest in a man twenty five years younger who wants an education. And I am not the woman for anybody who thinks of this as a last chapter, because I have been doing it since before a good number of the people on this board were born and I expect to be doing it for a while yet.