Not Your Shoe Size: A Novel About Acting Your Age (or not!) by Jennifer DiVita

Author:Jennifer DiVita [DiVita, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hummingbird Book House
Published: 2023-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

Colette, 55

I pulled an all-nighter, which meant I hadn’t gotten up once in the night to pee. But I woke abruptly in a puddle of liquid and panicked. Had I wet the bed? It couldn’t be pee. The moisture drenched me from head to toe. I examined my nightgown and the sheets. It was perspiration. Night sweats gave new meaning to sleeping in a water bed. Being unclean repulsed me. After decades of bleeding, I was now subjected to this? Will I ever feel fresh in life? I wondered. I showered to rinse the slimy dew from my skin, then washed the soggy sheets.

During perimenopause, the sweat dripped out of my pores. Calling them hot flashes was a joke. Why weren’t they named perpetual flames? Nobody warned me what a hot flash really was. But this was not just hot. This was as scorching as the Sahara Desert. It could be frigid outside, and I would still shed layers trying to regulate my broken internal thermometer.

To keep cool and prevent hyperthermia from invading my body, I stripped off my clothes at home and walked around the house naked. I pressed my bare body against the cold sliding glass door to cool down. I welcomed the relief. But my neighbors across the yard shut their curtains. I guess they didn’t enjoy the relief as much as I did.

I was a middle-aged divorcee with extended menopause. It was a trifecta for needing some kind of therapy. Maybe retail therapy. I could buy a new pair of shoes. Or I could start marital counseling. Clearly, I didn’t have a husband, but the counselor could advise me on how to find one. I was a lonely woman with no one to electrify with these thermal power surges. I opted to shop for both shoes and men. I would start dating men that were younger than me. I was still hot, even if it was just from the hot flashes. I could sizzle things up with my heat alone.

I called my gynecologist, Dr. Kwiatkowski, and asked him out. He was thirty-five and knew his way around a woman’s body. He was a gynecologist, after all. I was fifty-five, but the age difference wasn’t nearly as big a stretch as my stretch marks. He would have to squint hard not to see the age difference or my wrinkles.

I justified that a twenty-year gap was no big deal. But he might disagree. So I didn’t call it a date. I asked him if he could meet for coffee. He suggested the hospital cafeteria. I told him I had some questions about hormonal changes. I tried to flirt, but it fell flat. He gave me pamphlets on battling the symptoms of menopause. Was I losing my touch with men because of my age?

I kept asking him out for conversation over coffee. He kept bringing me brochures—literature on colonoscopies and hysterectomies. I wanted to give him one on lobotomies. Didn’t his brain recognize that I was attracted to him? I enjoyed being a cougar, except he didn’t even go to first base with me.

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