Thank you, Pita and Patty. It helps when I get this low and see things "through a glass darkly" to know that there are alternative ways of looking at things.

Patty, I think it's great that you even have a thought of relationships, and that Fayerody actually has had some. I am not yet 60, and I no longer think about having relationships. It seems too young to be so resigned. I try to fantasize and imagine what it might be like to have a loving relationship. I cannot do it, despite my best efforts. Relationships do not make sense to me anymore. I had planned to march into old age with my mate of 15 years, and I do not know what I did that was so awful that we could not go to counseling and try to set things right. Apparently, what I did was age, become ill, and lose my job so that I was no longer "a good earner" as I overheard him telling a friend.

It feels strange and wrong to be so totally devoid of interest in having a lovng relationship -- as if the roots of the tree have died. The trunk is still standing, but it is only a shadow of life. I don't even know how to express how weird it feels to have that part of me be completely dead and cut off to me. But I simply cannot pretend that it is still there. It's not.

Sorry to ramble. Not having a good time today.