Willy* is at a crossroads. In his late sixties, in a lifelong relationship with the woman of his life, he has experienced ups and downs, and wanted to tell his story today. To confide, but above all to philosophize.
“We often see the lives of old lovers as a long, quiet river,” he sums up, “but it is anything but a long, quiet river! »
In fact, if you want to know everything, the man has been writing to us for two years now. And it took him all this time to “get out of his way”. Regularly, almost every week, in fact, he reacts to the testimonies. He even wrote us a long text, hold on tight, in the style of “Behind the Door”, about his life. That gives you an idea of the character, who sings about Richard Desjardins here, Joni Mitchell there (hence his choice of nickname, by the way), in the middle of an interview.
We ended up meeting in a café in the north of the city, “in the middle of nowhere”, earlier in the fall, as he himself had predicted. No doubt, he’s a funny sparrow, the kind to quote Saint-Exupéry, to speak in metaphors, to evoke not the ups and downs of life, well, but rather the “tides”. We will come back to this.
This is because his life is divided into chapters. Tide point in the first years. In fact, after a first blonde as a teenager, Willy meets his current partner, “the being and the wife of [sa] life”, at CEGEP. It was almost 50 years ago. After a first kiss “in a snowstorm”, they find themselves in bed a few weeks later. “Delicious,” he said, smiling. I still have images in my head. »
At the time, they each lived with their parents. It’s not okay to take a blonde home. So they take a “room” together, he says, “to live [leur] sexuality in broad daylight. The honeymoon lasts 18 months, and ends quite harshly, thank you, “with broken dishes”.
We are two intense people. We are still two intense people…
Willy, late sixties
They then decide to remain “lovers”, but leave to live separately. Put yourself in context: “We didn’t have a cell phone, not even an answering machine, that allowed a lot of freedom…” They see each other on weekends, and in the meantime, agree on this “convention”: “If you’re going somewhere else, I don’t want to know.” »
And then ? Yes, our Willy flutters a little, but very little. “I remember everyone’s first name. Five girls in five years. » One-night stands aren’t his thing. “What I loved was making love…”
Over the years, our “lovers” decide to settle down. “It’s time we grew up together and started a family,” reports Willy.
Here we are in the second chapter of his life. It is also at this precise moment in the interview that Willy finally tells us about his “tides” in life. With the arrival of children, psychological worries and work, come the famous “low tides”, he philosophizes. Then, conversely, with the moves (“and we moved ten times!”), the departure of the children, on the contrary come the “high tides”. “We found ourselves like lovebirds. »
Umpteenth tide: menopause, a few years ago, which forced the couple to grieve several times, notably that of penetration, now “too painful” for Madame, confides our man, before adding quietly: “But she has a lot of imagination…”
As for the famous and legendary “low libido”, Willy uses a new metaphor here, this time automobile: “It’s not a problem with the battery, but with the starter,” he says with a smile. We understand that they have not put an end to the thing, but rather have changed pace, he confirms, now adopting the slow sex.
That’s to say ? It’s madame who “calls the shots”, in good French. “We’re due!” », he illustrates. “And there, it can take two or three days: we court each other, we get closer, often over an aperitif. It all starts with the art of kissing. Then we make love. ” How often ? Willy refuses to answer here. “It doesn’t matter so much…”
Certainly, we understand that it is above all here that our Willy has “made a philosophy”, as he says, by explaining to us that for him, making love is essentially “giving meaning to the pleasures of the senses “.
And when we do it, it’s so refreshing that we don’t need to get into repetitiveness.
Willy, late sixties
Still. He does not hide it, several questions came to his mind here: “What do you say? he asks. FOMO? [pour fear of missing out]. Am I going to fuck again? Compensate for ? “, he asked. The question bothered him to such an extent that yes, he ended up, by one of his famous “low tides”, going to look elsewhere. “I went for a dopamine rush,” he sums up. And then ? ” I regret […]I feel guilty. […] I allowed myself to satisfy my ego instead of remaining who I am. » That is to say: Willy, this man who loves his wife more than anything, and who does not like “kiss for the sake of kissing”, remember.
SO ? So he is at a crossroads, as we have said. A few days before our meeting, he had a meeting with his doctor. Bad news: Willy must begin treatment for previously dormant prostate cancer. When the verdict fell, a real “earthquake”, Madame was at his side. “She took me by the hand and said, ‘We’re going to make love,’” he says, smiling. “And we made love like when we were young. As if to ward off fate…”
Willy leaves us with a final reflection on his life: “There are days when I feel ugly,” he concludes. And then others where I say to myself: we’re going to adapt, that’s what we’ve always done! »
*Fictitious first name, to protect anonymity