Two weeks before my 23rd birthday, I explicitly practiced widowing.

January 19, 2024 1:49 PM

So I mean it when I say that I am going to outlive every man I will marry. It is a fact, familial, but it is also a feeling.
posted by spamandkimchi (29 comments total)

Paige Thomas is a recent graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA Program

I'm guessing there's no statistics requirement on that program.
posted by biffa at 2:34 PM on January 19 [19 favorites]

ONLY STATISTICALLY ACCURATE MUSINGS ON LIFE ALLOWED
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:37 PM on January 19 [40 favorites]

a Richard Brautigan poem comes to mind. A young woman at a social gathering, talking a bit too loud about how long lived her family is. Grandfather made to 104, both grandmothers almost to 100, also long lived great grandparents and various aunts and uncles.

"We're a a long living family," she says.

Which leads to the poem's abrupt final line:

What a surprise she had.


(or words to that effect)
posted by philip-random at 2:59 PM on January 19 [13 favorites]

I am not a religious or superstitious man, but I feel like this is the sort of thing that invites lightning strikes.

Or murderous husbands.
posted by star gentle uterus at 3:09 PM on January 19 [7 favorites]

I'm guessing there's no statistics requirement

That's the joke.
posted by splitpeasoup at 3:10 PM on January 19 [6 favorites]

Just marry a younger man! Or divorce when your husband starts looking sickly. Or don't get married. Or marry a woman. Maybe a younger one. Or, when your husband starts looking sickly, volunteer to be the single person in some trolley problem. Or skydive enough that the micromorts even out.

This is the thread where we engineer solutions to story problems, right?
posted by novalis_dt at 3:15 PM on January 19 [11 favorites]

Huh! Thanks for posting this, spamandkimchi. I wind up reading an awful lot of fiction by newer writers that’s either lit fic or lit fic-adjacent, and this one is more effective than much of what I read. Reminded me of The Rabbit Hutch, in the way of religion and belief as a persistent force in people’s lives in sometimes less than direct ways.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:24 PM on January 19 [3 favorites]

I've already outlived both of the men I married (and divorced); I wonder just how common that is? I joke with a long time lover, now just a friend, that he was lucky I didn't marry him - he's still alive!

Must be why I'm not looking for marriage to my Other Half...I like him too much to jinx him.
posted by annieb at 3:25 PM on January 19 [7 favorites]

I liked reading this.

Actually, I think the reason my dad’s affairs were left in such a jumble after his sudden death were because he probably thought he had at least another ten in front of him. Looking at most of his relatives, you could see why he might have thought that.
posted by PussKillian at 3:39 PM on January 19

My favorite character in this was the gray squirrel on the tree
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:55 PM on January 19 [6 favorites]

how could you resist using the opening sentence as the title
posted by glonous keming at 4:14 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

like contour sheets.
posted by clavdivs at 4:25 PM on January 19

You will outlive every cat or dog you know as well. Except for the last one of either species. Which is doubly true for parrots and macaws who can live to be 60. And when you die, I hope you have made friends with caring people who will take of these creatures which, given your attitude and your plans for your own survival, seems rather unlikely.
posted by y2karl at 5:08 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

“And when you die…” they will probably eat you.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 6:32 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

There's no practicing it.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:50 PM on January 19 [3 favorites]

> Despite Australian men averaging the longest life spans in the world, my pa is still alive because of my nana. She cares for him – has cared for him for his entire life – and she also cares for the house, for her children, for herself, like clockwork even though her feet are nearly hobbled with bunions and her hands shake so aggressively that each cup of tea clatters on its glass saucer as she carries it from the kitchen counter to the kitchen table.

> When I tell my mother, who is only sixty-one, about Australian men having the longest life spans, she laughs and says, “Men live so long over there because of vegemite, beer, and tea.” But my mother agrees; my pa is only alive because of my nana’s hard work. It is a day-in, day-out lifetime kind of work.
posted by are-coral-made at 8:38 PM on January 19 [7 favorites]

I have definitely outlived my virginity.

Obviously i understand what she’s saying here, but i have to say, i don’t love the turn of phrase.
posted by supercres at 9:37 PM on January 19 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed this very much.

Obviously Paige is a precocious whippersnapper who at the same time would dispatch me with a withering bon mot in a heartbeat. But she can write.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:01 PM on January 19

Just posting here so I can prove to my kids that I witnessed the emergence of the Actuarial Turn in realtime
posted by No-sword at 11:12 PM on January 19 [2 favorites]

Wow, I loved this so much! I really enjoyed the intertwining of:

> feeling practically immortal at 23; but realizing the cost is outliving everyone you'll love
> feeling safe and alone in your own home; but realizing you're never as safe and alone as you think
> feeling that it's an accomplishment/privilege to live long, but realizing how the quality of life of a long-living caretaker is much different than the quality of life of the long-living person who's being taken care of
> feeling weird about religious things; but trying the trappings of it anyway when you stand to benefit

Would the cat have delivered the $20 had the author not made the sign of the cross and (I assume) invoking St. Anthony? Who knows? (insert Schrodinger's/St. Anthony's cat joke here)

This was a delicious piece of nonfiction and I hope Paige Thomas lives a long, healthy life and continues to write.
posted by kimberussell at 7:12 AM on January 20 [4 favorites]

which, given your attitude and your plans for your own survival, seems rather unlikely.

Ha, I'm not sure there's much value in scolding a 23 year old for lapses in her 80 year plan.

I liked this a lot, and took it as largely self-aware/knowing (other than a. thinking vegemite needed to be defined for its audience, and b. thinking virginity is a relevant concept for grownups.)
posted by nobody at 8:19 AM on January 20

I already know that I am going to outlive every man I fuck.

I'm 50/50 on that being the observation based on family history as presented or an outright threat.

Unlike me, she was terribly conflict-averse...

I am going to write an obituary – or a few...

Well, 60/40...
posted by howbigisthistextfield at 8:33 AM on January 20

"Claudia/1923-1970"
Part 10

Her mother still living is 65.

Her grandmother still living is 86.

"People in my family
live for a long time!"
-Claudia always used to say,
laughing.

What a surprise
she had.

by Richard Brautigan
posted by Alcedinidae at 8:52 AM on January 20 [4 favorites]

When we were young my cousin once asked my grandma why our family had more women than men and she deadpanned, "they can't keep up."
posted by mostly vowels at 8:58 AM on January 20 [3 favorites]

Anyways, I do not believe in facts as much as I believe in feelings. This is a fact. This is how I feel about facts.

23-year-old me feeling really called out by this
posted by taquito sunrise at 9:48 AM on January 20 [2 favorites]

Oh you sweet summer child, having a marriage end in death is not all sweetness and light and as glamourous as you think it is.

Signed, someone 9.5 years into it...
posted by luckynerd at 12:31 PM on January 20 [6 favorites]

As a gay man who is primarily attracted to men at least 10 to 20 years older than me, I understand this sentiment completely. Sadly, this has already occurred in my life (my partner of 19 years passed in late 2015). After a few years being a recluse and occasional caregiver to family and friends who also lost loved ones, I met someone in late 2019 and dared to try loving again. Somehow we managed to survive the plague (so far), and now he's living with me. He seems to be leaning into his second (or third?) childhood and doesn't take the best care of himself. But I do what I can to help keep him fed, content and comfortable. If he dies before I do, I think I'm going to take my own exit as well. I have been present for too many passings in my life, and I don't see a point in my continued existence just to watch everything around me collapse like a melting glacier.
posted by deusdiabolus at 6:21 PM on January 20 [3 favorites]

I had thought this piece would be Roald Dahl-esque, but am glad I read it all the same.
posted by infinitewindow at 12:31 PM on January 21

deusdiabolus, many hugs to you.
posted by luckynerd at 9:21 AM on January 22