I was once (twice, actually) a Woman
About a dozen years ago I had to use a walker to get around and my sister and kids came over whenever they could to help me out with everything. Mostly, my sister. I’d had 3 major back surgeries by then, living on unemployment and my dream house savings account. My friends had disappeared one by one, and I’d given up on socializing and dating.
I had a lot to be thankful for. The surgeries were helping and I had a really good physical therapist. I was gradually getting better, but the accident totally changed the trajectory of my life. I hated having to take my medications, there was nothing on my calendar but medical appointments, and time just seemed to be standing still.
Anyway, there I was in my mid-fifties, feeling way older, in constant pain, losing my hair. Anesthesia can do that, they said. Could be. I’m the only baldie in my family. Oddly, I did sprout hair on my back, with a very distinct part down the middle (surgical scar). I couldn’t scuba dive anymore, or go hiking or play sports or even ride a bicycle. I needed help with just about everything and I couldn’t drive very far. So, yeah, I was freaking depressed, and even though my kids and grandkids visited a lot and my sister came and helped every day, I was really lonely and depressed and absolutely out of my mind with boredom.
My sister suggested social media. I joined several social sites and a few Yahoo groups. That got confusing because one of the residual effects of the injury to my head is that I have a hard time remembering certain things. Names especially, and evidently, passwords fall under that category. So eventually I whittled it down to Facebook, one Yahoo group, and 2 social sites.
On one of those, I met a woman I’ll call Dee, and after a couple weeks we started emailing. The emails were funny and got pretty flirty, too, but it still sort of came out of left field when she sent me a photo of, let’s say, “all the cleavage”. Well, you don’t have to be depressed and in a crippling mid-life crisis with hair suddenly growing on your back to find that interesting, but it did make it particularly interesting. For several months I willfully and quite enthusiastically enjoyed online shenanigans with Dee until it came to light that she was married. And so I ended it.
I ended it, but she didn’t. Not because I was all that and a bag’o chips – she knew my situation – but she wanted me to help her leave her husband. She wanted me to hire an attorney for her, buy her a plane ticket and let her move in with me. Her and her husband had major problems now, she said, and it was all my fault.
Sure, you could say I was unknowingly complicit, but I told her they had a major problem before I stumbled in. In a nutshell, I told her she was on her own, and that pissed her off.
She knew what social sites I was on, and about my Facebook and the Yahoo group, and she flooded all of them with a cherry-picked series of our emails and …sigh… photos of me. Very ~private~ photos. She also knew where I worked, so she found my employer’s email and sent him a bunch of that stuff too.
I got banned from both social sites, left the Yahoo group, and deleted my Facebook account. My employer said he wouldn’t hold my job open for me anymore. Oh man, and the lectures I got from my mom and my aunts…whoo-wee-boy! Worst of all, my daughter stopped speaking to me. For years.
I don’t know how but over the next few years or so it seemed like Dee could find me just about everywhere I went online, and she harassed me and my online friends relentlessly. I got super paranoid about the internet, especially social media, and I got rid of my computer. Dee’s wrath was worse than my accident, seriously.
In 2017, after a 4th surgery, I was back to using a walker. I'd had to quit working and move from my 3-br house into this little 1-br apartment. I was fed up with the pain, man. I was more depressed and lonelier than ever, thinking about just ending it all with a bottle of morphine. My sister brought me a PC and talked me into trying social media again. It had been good for me when it wasn’t life-ruining. Filled the hours, took my mind off the pain, helped me stop feeling sorry for myself. And I enjoy writing (wasn't much else I could do, actually).
So, I joined 2 social sites, but as a woman. I wasn’t taking any chances; left-over paranoia. And I’m not positive but I think Senior Forums was one of the 2. My sister and a neighbor lady helped write some of the posts because I was like, “Oops, I can’t say that, she’ll know it’s me!”, so I wound up a composite of myself and them. (It was kind of fun, actually.)
Anyway, my sister swears that Senior Forums was one of the two sites where I was a woman. So, shall we say my feminine side might be on here somewhere, in old posts. I can’t confirm that because I don’t remember what name I used, and neither does my sister, so I haven't found "her". This would have been in 2017. And it wasn’t for very long because not really being myself got pretty old pretty quick. Plus the paranoia about Dee faded away. My daughter was speaking to me by then, too.
I’m doing great now, comparatively. No more morphine or baclofen, and I’m down to low doses of hydrocodone. I graduated from a walker to a cane, and then nothin' but my feet. I was daddy to Collin for 2 ½ years, and I’m still in his life. I can run pretty well, just not for very long, went hiking and biking recently, and haven’t needed any help around the house for a long while.
And the icing on the cake; I met a very, very nice lady – in person!
