Sam is one of my favorite men of all time. He's witty, he's extremely intelligent, he has a devilish glint in his Paul Newman-blue eyes, he beats me by a hundred points or more every time we play Scrabble, and he always tells me how good I look. Sam is an absolute delight at 90 years old.
Someone must have told Sam that I was on dialysis. He asked me how I was, and we chatted a bit. Then he closed the conversation with, "Well, new horizons are opening to you." I smiled and said that was an unusual way of looking at it.
I had always thought of "new horizons" as an expression of something positive in someone's life--graduation from college, a new locale, a new job, marriage, the birth of a child. I had never thought of dialysis, or any health challenge, as a new horizon, but it certainly is. Just like the positive ventures I listed, dialysis gives me a perspective on life that had been denied me previously. People treat me in a different way than they did before, just as they treat someone who graduates from college, moves away from a familiar place, lands a new job, gets hitched, or brings another human being into the world in a different way. And I see my life differently than I had before, just as college grads, people in an unfamiliar setting, new guys or gals in the office, newlyweds, and young parents see life differently than they had previously.
Another perspective shift was prompted by something my friend Heather said. She was complaining about how people are always asking her when she's going to get married and why she isn't married yet. She said she finds this annoying. I said that she should think of this as a compliment. Though years ago, people used to ask me this question, it's been a long, long time since anyone has. They no longer consider me in the running. Since people are asking Heather this question, they still consider her worthy of marriage, someone who deserves to be married, who has every right to expect to be married someday. They no longer think this about me, especially now since dialysis.
This feeling of being outside of the realm of potential romance was brought home very clearly in another recent conversation. I was talking with a friend and her friend. The latter asked how I was doing with dialysis. I said that emotionally things had been difficult, but that physically I was feeling great. She then brought up the story of a friend of hers who had married a man with a colostomy--not that dialysis has anything to do with a colostomy, but I guess she figured it was on the same level of unattractiveness as dialysis. She said they were working around it and seemed to be happy. I said, "Yes, but he's a man. I'm a woman." The two of them nodded, knowing as all women know, that women will accept men with challenges that men would not accept in a woman.
To bring things full circle, I was at my mother's assisted living facility yesterday and talked with Sam. He said that he had met a female volunteer whose number he wanted from the office staff. He said he hadn't felt this way about a woman since, well, he'd turned 90! What a funny guy! So Sam is still thinking about courting members of the opposite sex, so maybe there's hope for me. It's possible that somewhere in the world there is a man who could love me for the treasure I am and not be dissuaded in the least by dialysis. It's possible. Thanks to Sam for another perspective.
