As far back as I can remember, whenever I pictured myself in the future, it was always as a small, weathered woman happily living alone.

I pictured this through a lifetime of relationships, a loving marriage and motherhood, through collaborations, commitments, career moves and middle age.  I was energized by this image of my solitary self and sought out time alone like a drug.  And all the while, the voice in the back of my head kept hammering,  “ Deege, how fucked up is that? “

Now, I am 60  and living in my house with my dog.  I have aged out of parenthood, burnt out of partnership, and live so far away from my grandsons, I feel like I made them up. My picture was always of solitude, and my life, a search to find it.  Now I am what I foresaw, and couldn’t be happier about it.

It is 7:00 p.m. and I am already snuggled into bed.  I am a woman who lives alone and this is one of the perks.  I squint, aim the remote at HGTV, and brace my back against the pillows for my evening Munch – like scream.

I am watching my favorite show, House Hunters.  I have hunted houses with those people for years.  I love the show for many reasons.  I love it for satisfying the lazy lookie – loo in me, I love it when we go to commercial guessing  which of the three houses  the couple chooses, I love it when we come back months later and see how they’ve made it their own , and I love it because it allows me to primaly purge my poisonous  frustration.

This is how a typical episode of House Hunters goes.  A husband and a wife – not always, but usually — are shown three houses by a Realtor.  These three houses are in contention with one another.  By the end of House Hunters, the couple will have chosen one and closed.   This is how a typical House Hunters house-showing  goes.  The couple walks into each house brimming with visible hope.  Will this be the one?  Or will this be the one?  The Realtor is thinking the same thing.  Wife and husband exclaim at the open feeling of the entry, pass judgment on the kitchen and compliment the fine job the previous owners did installing the hardwood floors.  They comment on the curb appeal , number of bedrooms and street noise, and finally, for the piece de resistance, the Realtor asks them if they are ready to view the master.

Don’t get me started on the nomenclature “ master.” I am already mad enough.

So, here we go. Closets !  They woo the wife with closets !  And the couple and the Realtor make the same lame joke every time.

The husband and wife look into the closet.

“Oh, Honey!” the man observes as he walks into the walk– in. “Think there will be enough room for your shoes?”  he asks,  as he admires the closet’s size.

The Realtor laughs heartily.

“ Oh, Honey, ” the wife says, joking along.  “ This closet looks terrific, but I don’t think we can fit any of your stuff in it!”

She goes and grabs about four hangers.

“Well, maybe you can hang your stuff, here, “she says.

The husband looks at the Realtor.  The Realtor looks at him.

“Now let me go show you the Man Cave, “says the Realtor.

“ Now you’re talking, “says Hubby.

So here’s where I scream.

The Man Cave is usually a finished basement or unfinished because the couple did say that they might like a fixer – upper.  If they get really lucky, the Man Cave has already been decked out by its previous man.  It has a plaid carpet, a refrigerator, a bar, a hot, loud entertainment system, and, naturally, a pool table, or at least room for one.  If the pool table’s there, the Realtor assures the husband that it could be written into the contract during negotiations.

“It’s all good,”they say.

Where is the Woman Cave, House Hunters ?   Where is that carrot to dangle before the female buyer ?  When will the Realtor say  “Ta – Da !” as he or she opens a door other than the closet?  Other than a “ Here’s your kitchen? “  Other than “I hope you noticed how close we are to the mall “ or a jolly  “You could do your crafts here,” while they point out a narrow ledge.

Here is where my  aggravation lies  in a sociological, generational, gender-specific knot.   Where are those rooms, those rooms of one’s own , that Virginia Woolf was talking about?

I just saw a “subject line”jump up in my spam. I am always hopeful about spam. Maybe it really is something really good.  However this spam subject line jumped out at me :

Sell My Unwanted Time

I did not go further to see whether the subject line reached its logical conclusion ; Unwanted Timeshare Weeks  or some such. There is a huge market for unwanted time, though, if it ever were to become available. Target audience :Women.  Women would buy unwanted time like hotcakes and make it their own.

In 1928, in her epic speech and essay A Room of One’s Own ,Virginia Woolf introduced the idea that a woman needs time to herself.   Here we are, in 2010, more than eighty complicated years later.  How are we women fulfilling  that need amidst all the clamoring others?