With Valentine’s Day a little less than a month away, have you started to make plans?  Yes, I know.  You don’t have a date, yet!  Or perhaps you’re a bit more in my shoes and you acknowledge that you are 99% sure you WON’T have a date come February 14^th.

But if I won’t be spending the day being romanced, does that mean I can’t enjoy it?  I can count on one hand the number of times over the years I spent Valentine’s Day with someone I was dating.  Most years, I spent the day either alone or with friends.  I can tell you from my own experience that the days I spent it alone, trying to pretend it didn’t matter or acting as though it was like any other day, didn’t work too well.  The years I spent acknowledging it and making plans with family or friends were the Valentine’s Days that I enjoyed the most (sometime more so than some of the dates I had).

I create special moments for a lot of people.  Last month alone, I threw a baby shower for a co-worker, had a special birthday luncheon for my goddaughter and created a memorable New Year’s Eve for me and a friend.

It’s nice when someone creates special moments for us.  It’s especially nice when those moments are made by a romantic partner, on Valentine’s Day.  But life is often what we make of it!  So if a wonderful husband isn’t out there making plans for me on February 14^th, maybe that’s not the end of the story.  As so many self-help books encourage single women to do, perhaps I could learn to “love myself, and what better day to demonstrate that than on Valentine’s Day.  Also, while we’re loving ourselves, why not extend that love to a few other unsuspecting people?  It can make the occasion so much richer.  Here are a few suggestions on making that day special for you and for others:  Most of them require that you plan ahead, so don’t delay.

1. Boldly remind yourself it’s a day of love by wearing red to work.
2. During your lunch hour, read some love poetry
3. Send a Valentine’s Day card to a friend
4. Send a box of chocolate to a girl at least half your age
5. Give a single rose to a woman twice your age. If you don’t know anyone personally, drop it off at your local senior center and ask them to give it to someone.
6. Invite a friend (or two) over for dinner and a movie (or go out for both).
7. Write a letter to your future husband

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Many of the men I date have that flabby thing under their arm. You probably know what I’m talking about. It’s that thing that if you lift your arm, it sways back and forth uncontrollably. I admit to having it too. I’m not quite sure when it appeared, but one day when I raised my arm to brush my hair, I discovered it had some how latched on.

I find it an undesirable sign of aging. I remember the first time I really paid attention to its existence. I had a boss 10 years older than me. She was around 45 at the time. She was thin and in good health. One day she lifted her arm and there it was. I gasped. She looked over at me and I tried to pretend that I was gasping at something I was reading, but really the site of her old age horrified me. I guess I thought that flabby thingy was only for heavy people (or thin people who lost a lot of weight). But there she was, a woman about my same height and weight waving her age in my face taunting me with a glimpse of my future.

Several years ago I had my first flabby thingy date. The man was 10 years older, which didn’t phase me. He had a young, full of life personality. Unfortunately his arm was every bit its age. When the flabby thingy saw me, it too waved hello. For a moment I wanted to flee. But instead I mustered the courage to face it. I even reached out and touched the man’s arm – well, I touched his bicep (I wasn’t ready to touch the soft jello like substance hanging from underneath).

After a few good dates with this guy, I made peace with the flabby thingy, although it knew I wasn’t completely comfortable around it. But I realized that as my body changed with age, I wasn’t completely comfortable with what was happening to me either. But I learned to feel and be more confident about how I look. And more so, as I look for “him” – someone to grow old with, regardless of whether he has flabby things now, he will have them one day. And my hope is that we will be together when that happens. So no need to chase youth. I choose to treasure those physical attributes that come so naturally with age. Flabby thingys, ear hair, receding hairline – yep. I’m all in.

I recently bought a tool that changed my life.  Okay, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but it was a pretty grand moment for me.  This blog really is about dating, but it will take me sometime to get to the point. So bear with me.

See I have a showerhead that is old.  I has very little pivot, and the spray is less than adequate.  I have been trying to replace it with one of those hand showers with tubing.  The problem was I couldn’t remove my old showerhead.  My method in the past has always been to use a set of pliers that I have.  I’ve use them in over a half dozen homes where I’ve lived and the pliers always do the job.  But in this house, it wasn’t working.  No matter how much elbow grease, WD-40, the showerhead wouldn’t budge.

So, I decided to consult an expert.  I went to a hardware store and explained my problem.  The nice man told me that a wrench should do the trick.  I cringed.  Wrenches seem like a skilled laborer’s tool.  I’m an amateur so it was above this girl’s comfort level.  Besides I couldn’t really see what difference it would make.  If I tried with pliers and it didn’t work, how was a wrench going to matter.

So now I’m month six into using my stupid showerhead, I, once again in my frustration, try to remove it.  It doesn’t budge an inch.  Aargh.  Well, later that day as I was blogging about ‘how you can’t be afraid to try new things to find him, and avoid being too, especially when you think a method won’t work for you’ – that’s when that light bulb went off.  I knew I had that same cynical attitude about the wrench.  As trivial as it sounds, inside there are things that ring true that you just have to listen to.  And my attitude about the wrench was one of those moments.  So that same evening, I went back to the hardware store and bought a wrench.  It took me about 20-minutes to figure out which one to purchase.  To be honest, not a whole lot of research and understanding went into my decision.  It boiled down to the price was right, I liked the pretty blue handle, and it didn’t look to overpowering.

When I came home, I got out my footstool climbed on and placed the wrench around the neck of the shower head.  I took a deep breath and began to turn.  And as easy as it is for me to open a soda bottle, the showerhead that tormented me for months came right off with as little effort.  I was in total disbelief, but there I was standing with the old rusted shower head in my hand.

Today as I was taking a shower with my new state of the art showerhead, I was feeling extremely grateful and marveling how long it took me to get to this place, but also at how easy the solution turned out to be.  And then that same gut feeling that told me to buy the wrench and take a risk now said, “This is what it will be like when you find love.  “Be open to exploring something new that you should try and once you do, you’ll marvel at how easy love will come your way.”

When I heard those words, I felt a burden lifted.  It felt like a promise just for me. I know it wasn’t exactly a revolutionary statement.  We all know the value of being open minded.  And I certainly have had more than my share of new adventures.  But this was a timely message.  A gentle reminder that the yoke is easy and the burden is light.

I think finding love shouldn’t be so hard and as I take this adventure I hope to find tools that make it a little easier for me and you.

I’m daging… it means “dating while aging.”  Yes, we all age.  Even the 20-something with perky breasts is aging.  But something happens when you’re in your 40s.  It feels like the aging process begins to accelerate.  And so managing all the changes you’re body is going through, all the while trying to feel attractive can be complicated.  Take for example a date I had a while ago with a man who took me to his favorite jazz club.  I knew he wanted to dance, but it happened to be a day when my ankles had swollen like balloons.  Not an issue I had in my 20s and 30s.  Also, the matter of gaining weight and trying to lose it (mostly unsuccessfully) enters a whole new realm of complicated when you’re over 40.  And regarding the reproductive problems for the daging, well I don’t have the time or space to list the struggles there.  Forty may be the new thirty, but dating while aging is a harsh reminder that I’m not as young as I used to be.

Any over 40 singles out there who feel my pain ?

I’m back to dating online.  Taking a break for over a year was good.  But I quickly remember why online dating was so frustrating.  An email and a photo – that’s how we’re introduced to people online.  While a photo that reveals a handsome face gets me excited, the content of his email is soooo much more important to me.  I’m more accepting of someone who has a good email even though he may not be physically attractive – verses a good photo and a bad email (cliché, one-liners, a non personal approach).  Also profiles can present stumbling blocks. You know, the one where the person doesn’t either write anything about him self or writes a novel.  I wish there was a dating website where guys were required to use the help of a writing coach to create their profile, along with the first couple of emails.  It really would help with the introductions.