Life Is Not a Stage by Florence Henderson (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

have all been hovering around my airspace in recent times. One of them sent me an e-mail that he wanted to come over and cook dinner for me.

“Oh, Kayla, what should I do?”

“You know what that means,” she answered with that big-sister kind of tone. In this particular case, I didn’t feel like being the dessert.

In this group, I want to especially highlight Dr. Jesse Rogers. He’s a great chiropractor, healer, and, best of all, a wonderful friend. I love him dearly. Not only does he dispense great advice on everything from health to spirituality, he’s also a great joke teller and always makes me laugh. Here is one sample:

“A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office. He’s got a cucumber in one ear, a banana in the other, and a carrot sticking out of each nostril. So he asks the psychiatrist, ‘Can you help me? What do you think my problem is?’ The doctor says, ‘Yes, I think I can diagnose this…You’re not eating properly.’”

I do get the most interesting e-mails through my website. It’s remarkable how many of the inquiring men who write in to me are in their mid to late forties. Do the math, and I guess it’s one of those generational things. They were all probably doing their homework, drinking chocolate milk, and memorizing their multiplication tables while watching The Brady Bunch when it was a first-run show.

One guy, who was fifty-eight and a vegetarian, wrote in frequently and was sending me pictures of himself. He wanted to meet up. He was quite handsome, but I have not been quite ready to make the leap to online dating. I wrote him back and told him how much I enjoyed his letters, but that I didn’t have the time to continue corresponding. He wrote me back a funny and good-natured note: “Oh, I am so sorry that your life is so full. Maybe when your life isn’t so full, you can consider me.”

For anybody who wants to follow in this person’s footsteps, you can certainly feel free to line up and take a number. I will answer all of your e-mails, as I always do.

For a while, I got serious about one of my suitors. But an overseas trip we took together was enlightening, and this once charming and wonderful man turned out to be a certified control freak. Talk about demands. “You can’t do that anymore! And while you’re at it, give up those friends!” No, thank you. After our last dinner out together, he marched upstairs and got all of his stuff together.

“I think we need a break,” he said.

“You’re so right,” I concurred, and immediately this wonderful feeling of calm came over me as he was carrying his belongings out the door. “Let me help you.”

A few days later, I mailed him a nice note thanking him for all the good times, telling him how much I loved his daughter and son-in-law, and wishing him only the best. It was enclosed in the box with a pair of sneakers he had inadvertently left behind.

To get serious for a moment, there’s something of a litmus test that you have to think about at this stage, too, beyond whether or not to have sex or get into a serious commitment. After my precious years with John, the issue about being in that place of ultimate trust comes forward. Specifically, it boils down to whether or not you can be there for the other person and take care of him when he needs you. John had so much trust in me when he got sick, that I would be there by his side. On my part, there was no hesitation or question about it. Although it was physically and emotionally demanding at the end, it was such a privilege to be there for him. But a lot of people don’t have that in them, or simply don’t care enough. So you have to answer in your mind the hardcore question: “Do I care enough about this person that I would be willing to take care of him?” It’s not a pleasant thought, but I’m putting it out there because it is a reality and a choice we all have to confront.

“You really inspired me,” an older person said to me at one reception after my show. “You have such a sparkle in your eyes. You radiate such an enjoyment of life. I can tell how much you are still excited about your life.” This person was only a little bit younger than I was, but it was clear that he recognized a spark in me, something that he had probably lost and wanted to reclaim. Many are curious about why my energy seems far younger than my actual age. Have I discovered some fountain of youth? Or is it because I have a truly great plastic surgeon?

“I’ve come to this realization the last few years,” I tell them. “We can do nothing about the fact that we are getting chronologically older. It does force you to look at things that you really don’t want to look at. But once you stop fighting and surrender to that fact, it’s liberating. You can’t pretend that it’s not happening, but your spirit does not have to get old. In fact, when the spirit is truly youthful, the body does a much better job of hanging in there, too.”

Part of that liberation has come from the fact that I have confronted and cleared out many of my worst fears. But the one about taking that final big walk into the sky is still definitely a work in progress. On that account, I had a sneak preview a few years back. I was staying with Kayla out in the desert for a few days when suddenly everything shifted into slow motion—walking, breathing, speaking, thinking, and so on. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. She looked at me, and it wasn’t too long before I was in the emergency room. One of the