The Shape of What Didn’t Hold

Not long ago, I wrote about Lauren Kessler’s Everything Changes Everything, a memoir that revolves around love, loss, and what it means to keep on living. It is, in many ways, a simple proposition. We form attachments. We lose them. And then, ready or not, we find a way to move on.

My last significant relationship, with Gwen, comes to mind when I think about all that.

We met on her sixty-fifth birthday, in March 2019, when I was in my early seventies. I remember attaching a certain significance to that date, as if the timing itself carried meaning. At our age, it felt possible, even sensible, to imagine that what began then might be the last relationship for each of us. There was comfort in that idea. An appeal. A sense of arrival. Or at least of being done with new beginnings.

What followed, instead, was the start of a pattern that led to considerable pain for both of us.

We broke up and then reconciled many more times than I can count. Our endings never quite held. Sometimes they were quiet, other times louder and more-obviously decisive, but during the five years we tried, I became conditioned to believe that none of them were truly final.

She had many ways of reappearing in my life: a text; a voicemail; a call; more than once, a knock on my door. At one point, a sighting on the bike path resulted in a conversation that turned into something else. Then, despite whatever resolve I had constructed in her absence, I would find myself drawn back in.

In March 2020, I started back into therapy. It was there that I was introduced to Attachment Theory, which provided a framework for understanding what felt, at the time, both confusing and inevitable. In simple terms, some individuals move toward closeness when a bond feels uncertain, while others move away when the closeness feels threatening. The anxiously-attached partner leans in, trying to secure the connection. The avoidantly-attached one withdraws, trying to protect a sense of independence. Neither position feels optional from the inside; people are, in many ways, hard-wired from early in life.

Gwen and I fit this pattern with an uneasy and predictable precision. The more distance I felt, the more I tried to close it. The more I tried to close it, the more she needed to back away. While there was an intensity to our reunions that suggested a renewed closeness, it rarely held for long.

Over time, I came to understand a bit more about her beginnings. As the oldest child, early in life she was left with her grandmother for a time while her mother went on to build a life that did not include her. I do not pretend to draw straight lines from that fact, but it is not difficult to imagine how early abandonment might echo later in life, shaping how closeness is approached and how distance is managed.

Of course, it is only fair to acknowledge that I brought my own baggage into this relationship. My mother was physically present throughout my childhood, but I rarely experienced her as emotionally available or supportive. Looking back, it is not hard to see how that absence, of a different kind, may have left its own imprint, shaping my need for reassurance and a hyper-sensitivity to distance.

We even tried, toward the end, to step out of our destructive pattern and call it “friendship.” That, too, proved to be fraught with difficulty. Too much had been said, and unsaid. Too many endings had left us wounded and scarred. Whatever ease friendship requires, we had long since worn it down.

In the end, the final separation came not with a shared understanding, but with a story that could hold. She came to see me as the one who had wronged her, and while I did not share that view, I came to understand how it made a clean ending possible where none had existed before. She stopped knocking on my door.

Now, as I approach my seventy-ninth birthday, I see quite clearly how much of this decade of life was spent inside a relationship that just did not have enough positive emotional adhesive to endure. We’re now over two years down the road from our last contact and I still think of all the painful times shaped by that push-and-pull dynamic. As Kessler reminds us, life continues, making its way around and through both the love and the loss.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

I was on my way to you and I was worried
I was all torn up and nervous cause I knew that you’d be gone
I knocked and crossed my fingers while I waited
And I couldn’t hold the teardrops when I walked away alone

It’s all over, it’s all over, my heart echoed
Every minute that you cry for her is wasted don’t you know
It’s all over, it’s all over, so forget her
Stop your cryin’ turn around and let her go, let her go, boy
Let her go

(“It’s All Over” — Johnny Cash)

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Horizontal Compatibility

Online dating, at my age, raises questions one does not always anticipate. Some of them, it turns out, are… positional.

Not long ago, a woman on OurTime (a dating site for seniors) recently “liked” my profile. I liked her back and sent a message suggesting that we meet. Then: nothing. Four weeks passed. I ultimately filed the whole thing away under “oh, well.” I admit, I forgot all about her.

But eventually she wrote back.

So then I found myself, somewhat to my own surprise, heading out for my first first date since March 2019. This fact alone felt like an event worth noting.

The meeting itself, at a local Starbucks, went well. More than well, actually. We talked for more than an hour and a half without effort. The conversation had range, some depth, even a bit of spark. At the end, there was a hug that she initiated. Not the standard-issue, socially-prescribed hug, but a long, sustained, quietly-mutual embrace. The kind of physical contact that lingers just enough to suggest possibility.

I drove home thinking, well, that was nice.

The next day, I wrote to say I’d enjoyed meeting her and would be glad to get together again.

Her reply was, and I quote:

“id like to meet again if we spend most of that time hugging. Hmm where would that be possible”

Now, as suggestions go, this was not one I was inclined to reject. I even confessed, in a moment of candor, that I might qualify as a very touch-deprived individual. And so it seemed that we had entered into a mildly flirtatious exchange, one with a surprisingly clear agenda.

But then came the practical question: where does one go to engage in sustained, low-ambiguity hugging?

She thought maybe a park. A blanket. Perhaps a picnic.

And now it is here is where the narrative takes a decisive turn toward the absurd.

I explained, as plainly as I could, that lying on the ground — grass, sand, or any other surface that requires one to interface directly with the planet — is not something my back, hip, and leg nerves are inclined to negotiate well. This was not about getting up afterward. This was about being down there in the first place. So, yep, I had reservations about this idea.

And let’s be clear: we are talking about two 78-year-olds here. The image of both of us gracefully arranging ourselves on a blanket, then remaining there in some extended state of horizontal embrace, begins to feel less like romance and more like a logistical exercise requiring advance planning and possibly the temporary services of a personal aide.

Her response was brief and decisive. Again, I quote:

“Regretfully, if you’re not capable of laying down on a blanket with me, I guess we’re not a match”

And just like that, a door closed.

There is something almost admirable in the specificity, simplicity and clarity of the rejection. Not about conversation. Not about compatibility. Not about chemistry. Entirely about: blanket viability.

One imagines her revising her profile to include: “Must enjoy meaningful conversation and prolonged horizontal hugging in outdoor settings.”

Rejection, however it arrives, still has a way of landing, though. And land it did. Not dramatically, but just enough to be noticed, a small shift in the internal weather. And then, as these things tend to do, the storm passed, leaving behind the memory of that unexpectedly good hug.

Thank you, universe, for that.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

And when the night falls, and when the sky falls,
I long for your embrace.
Another daybreak, another heartache,
I long for your embrace.

(“Embrace” — Bee Gees)

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Shrinking

“Shrinking.” noun: a popular series on Apple TV.

“Shrinking.” adjective: becoming smaller in size or amount.

Lately, the word brings the TV show to mind first. Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, and Jessica Williams play therapists sharing a small private practice. I’m quite fond of it. It manages to be funny while taking on friendship, parenting, grief, and the frequent ethical angle. I really look forward to each episode.

But there is also a more personal meaning these days: becoming smaller in size. It turns out that is not just a definition; it is my life.

The older I get, the smaller my world becomes.

Last fall I traveled to my high school reunion, only the second trip I’ve taken since the pandemic. Both trips have been to small-town northern Wisconsin. Travel has become such a physical ordeal that I now approach it with the strategic planning of a minor military operation. Fortunately, I had enough frequent flier miles to upgrade to first class each time. I am not sure I would have survived the cattle-car-in-the-back alternative. Or at least with not much dignity; my claustrophobic tendencies would likely have taken up too much attention.

Closer to home, my world has settled into a familiar circuit. The UPS store for my Amazon packages. Three grocery stores in regular rotation. And then the medical offices. So many medical offices! I seem to have assembled quite an impressive team of specialists, each responsible for a different body part that is no longer performing as originally advertised. Most of these businesses and offices are in North Eugene where I live. My ophthalmologist, pain doc, and therapist are in South Eugene.

Yes, I have a therapist. At this age. I still have issues.

There is also my daily walk, which remains essential for body, mind and spirit. Not that long ago I was walking three miles a day, more than a thousand miles a year. These days I manage about one mile, often pausing halfway to stretch and negotiate with my back. Spinal stenosis and its accompanying nerve pain have reset expectations. They have also reduced how often I attend protests or head out with a camera, both once reliable parts of my routine.

And then there is my height. I used to measure 5 foot 7 at my annual physical. Last month, even standing as tall as I could, I came in just under 5 foot 5. Apparently, I am not only aging, I am compressing. Yes, I have osteoporosis. I do not like this. In high school I was among the shortest in my class, often the last chosen for teams. I remember the feelings of inadequacy that resulted. While I am no longer being chosen for teams, the world is still a different place for a short man. It always has been.

What I am left with, it seems, is a smaller map. Fewer miles traveled, fewer places to go, fewer things I can easily do. Even a shorter reach upward.

Despite everything, though, I seem to be getting a better look at what’s right in front of me.

And if necessary, I suppose, I can always stand on tiptoe.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

Well, I don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
‘Round here

Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
To love

(“Short People” — Randy Newman)

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The Executor Dilemma

A Boy Scout’s Guide to Late-life Logistics

In my previous essay, I found myself reflecting on the subject of time. Writing it left me thinking much more seriously about how much of it I may have left. At my age — I’m now in my 79th year — existential angst is to be expected. Many friends and colleagues are now gone, while those of us still here seem increasingly occupied with managing one physical malady or another.

Ah yes, the maladies. They arrive in clusters at this stage of life, don’t they? For example, my walking regimen, once integral to both my physical and mental health, has become disturbingly limited. Chronic nerve pain from spinal stenosis now restricts my mobility, and more recently I have added compression stockings to my wardrobe to deal with peripheral edema. It really is no secret that a senior-citizen’s body is a full-time maintenance project.

Now, as it happens, I was a Boy Scout in my youth, and the motto drilled into every Scout was simple: Be Prepared.

Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, did not mean that only in the sense of carrying the right gear on a camping trip. He meant it as a way of approaching life itself. Think ahead. Get things in order before the moment arrives.

So. Let’s get real. It definitely is time for me to get serious about preparing for my Final Exit.

The pandemic, of course, had previously served to sharpen this realization. In 2020 I was well into the category of people considered highly vulnerable to COVID. Although we did not know the precise statistics at the time, we now know that people over 65 accounted for the vast majority of deaths from the disease. I behaved cautiously and, for whatever reason, never contracted the virus.

However, during that unsettling time, I did make a few modest strides toward “getting my affairs in order.” Ever since then, a white 9×12 envelope labeled “Important Stuff” has been attached to my refrigerator door, quietly waiting to be needed. Inside it are my Advance Directive, which I prepared back in 2014 (upon retirement), along with some basic information about my finances and where funds should be directed upon my death.

Of course, one rather obvious detail remained unresolved. Who exactly would carry out these wishes? I never actually completed a Will.

Not that I didn’t try. I went to the FreeWill website and started working through the prompts. Everything went smoothly until I reached the section asking me to name an Executor. Who would that be? I do not have a spouse or significant other, and most of my relatives live far away. Asking friends to take on the administrative burden of settling someone’s affairs felt like a rather large favor to request.

So the process stalled.

But I have just recently discovered that there are professionals who can perform this role. Licensed Professional Fiduciaries can serve as a Personal Representative, handling the various financial, legal, and logistical details that follow a person’s death. In cases like mine, where the estate is modest, the process may even be handled through a Simple Estate Affidavit rather than a lengthy probate proceeding.

I am still learning about how all of this works, of course, but I have already contacted a local firm that provides fiduciary services and requested an initial consultation.

None of this is especially dramatic; it is simply the quiet work of tidying up important details. It’s the kind of effort that is easy to postpone because the moment requiring it always seems far away. Yet eventually the time arrives. Deep down, we all know that.

And so I find myself returning to bits of advice first learned long ago in the Boy Scout Handbook. The lessons were about life. And now death.

Be prepared.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

I’m not scared of dying 
And I don't really care
If it’s peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near

If it’s peace you find in dying
And if dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin cause 
It’s cold way down there
I hear that's it’s cold way down there
Yeah, crazy cold way down there

(“And When I Die” — Laura Nyro; Blood, Sweat & Tears)

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The Monk Persists

I built this blog on Thanksgiving Day, 2005. From scratch. In a single afternoon.

That first version is likely something archaeologists of the early internet might excavate from a dead server farm somewhere. Remember, this was before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before podcasts. Before we were all gently coerced into becoming “content creators,” feeding platforms whose names would eventually become verbs.

Back then blogging was its own ecosystem. Independent. Slightly nerdy. Sometimes thoughtful. Often opinionated. For some weird reason, I wanted in.

On that first day I explained how I came to call myself “TechnoMonk.” The name originated with a friend who once observed that my home furnishings were distinctly Spartan, while my investment in cameras, computers, and sound equipment was anything but. The term stuck; I’m still a gadget enthusiast.

The original blog was hosted by Blogger, and lived on a Comcast server under the domain technomonk.us. It was free, which seemed appropriate for what was then essentially a self-indulgent side project. Over time I discovered that “free” came with aesthetic constraints, sketchy support, and documentation that was likely composed by a tech guy with limited social skills. After almost a year of muttering at the screen, I decided to move on.

In October 2006 I adopted the domain technomonksmusings.com and migrated everything to Squarespace, where it has remained ever since. That first transition was not seamless. Files were exported and imported; some did not survive the journey. Lessons were learned. Patience was tested. A few agonizing weeks passed.

Eventually the site settled into Squarespace’s v5 platform, where it has lived for many years. The design remained largely unchanged. I described this to myself as “clean and timeless.” It may also have been “aging quietly.” At this point, my blog is older than many current, well, what-do-you-call-them, “influencers.”

What changed over time was my understanding of what this space represented. What began as a modest vanity project gradually became something more substantial: a personal archive. It now contains reflections on work, institutional politics, relationships, travel, aging, grief, loss, rejection, existential angst, and yes, a fairly steady stream of complaints. I have never curated commentary particularly carefully.

Version 5, however, has reached its twilight. Support is minimal. Editing began to feel like maintaining a museum exhibit devoted to mid-2000s web design. So the options became clear: let it fade away, archive it imperfectly, or migrate again.

But I remembered 2006. The mere thought of another migration made my shoulders tighten. The move to Squarespace 7.1 would preserve the content, but the site itself would need rebuilding. Every post would require reformatting. One. By. One. Add in the predictable dry eyes from too many hours at a screen, and it all began to feel like a full-contact sport.

And yet, here we are.

The transition is complete. The layout is cleaner. The font is slightly larger, which my fellow senior citizens should appreciate. Underneath, the structure is sturdier and far less temperamental.

Two domain names. Three platforms. Twenty years.

Not bad for something launched on a whim in a sparsely furnished home office with just my computer and one crazy idea.

So: thank you for stopping by, whether you’ve been here since 2005 or arrived somewhere along the way. I can’t promise frequency. I can promise that when something feels worth saying, it will appear here.

The Monk persists.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

It’s quite apparent
Your grammar’s errant
You’re incoherent

Saw your blog post
It’s really fantastic
That was sarcastic
’Cause you write like a spastic

I hate these Word Crimes
Your prose is dopey
Think you should only
Write in emoji

(“Word Crimes” – “Weird Al” Yankovic)

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