One man shares his story of unexpected love.
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After a number of spectacularly failed relationships, and a marriage of over twenty years that I had sabotaged, I pretty much thought that by the age of sixty, I’d run my course. Love was through with me. I had tried, and failed, and in those failures, I was destined to close out my life as a singularity. Forty-five years after my first kiss, and forty-four years after I had fumbled through my first attempt at making love, I was looking at a long slow fade to black as a single man.
After a number of spectacularly failed relationships, and a marriage of over twenty years that I had sabotaged, I pretty much thought that by the age of sixty, I’d run my course.
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Could be I was wrong. Love found me when I was busy planning my Fortress of Solitude.
How that happened is less of interest to me than the fact that it happened at all. Apparently, there were some lessons learned the hard way, years of butting up against wrong ideas and misperceptions about myself, others, my world, and how to navigate.
As it turns out that I simply hadn’t done the work, learned the lessons. Over the years I had, in my headstrong way, followed every delusion of love to it’s logical, if disappointing conclusion. During that time, I had moved through therapists, counselors, best friends, lovers—none of whom could tell me what I needed to know about love; how it worked, and how to make it work. Or maybe they could and did tell me, but I wasn’t listening. It seems likely I was asking the wrong questions, and coming to the wrong conclusions all along.
I’m thinking I’ve turned to corner on it now. It helps to have found a partner, a miraculous, grounded, lovely partner who calls out in me qualities I had forgotten about … or didn’t know I had. Our relationship has some challenges—proximity being one of them, as we live in what are essentially two different countries and cultures. And I am not so well-resourced that I can hop a plane at a moments notice. But something special and unexpected is happening in my life.
What I’ve learned isn’t a particular secret; it isn’t hidden knowledge, arcane and esoteric. It’s pretty fundamental. Maybe the lessons are specific to me, but I think they generalize.
Love after sixty is different. I find that the passion is deeper, and the burn is slower. Love after sixty unfolds, it doesn’t explode. Love after sixty moves at a far different pace than it did at any other time in my life. I find that I am able to express myself better than at any other point in my experience—I understand more about what I am feeling, I can find the words more easily, and I find that I want to talk about it. There is no time to sulk, or nurse petty grievances; there is only time to be open and intentional. That is a relief.
Love after sixty unfolds, it doesn’t explode.
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Maybe the burn is slower because we don’t get to see each other as often as we’d like, due to distance, while we are sorting out how to bring together two disparate and distant households. But I believe that I would move as purposefully, and intentionally, and slowly were we next-door neighbors. I want this to unfold as it will; I trust the process implicitly. That’s new, compared to all previous experiences, which were a frantic blur and rush of feelings and actions.
Part of that is, I think, the recognition that I am approaching the final act. I find the balance exquisite—I don’t want to waste time, and yet, there is a wonderful thoughtfulness and intention around every action in this relationship—it is like moving in slow motion, assured that each step is directed towards something wonderful and heart-ful.
I’ve learned not to rush, to savor each moment as it presents, for what it is worth. And these moments are worth my attention, worth my full engagement. Nature slows our cadence as we age—not to frustrate us, or trigger a lament about what we can no longer do with alacrity—but to help us focus on what is important. Someone once described a Diane Ackerman book as presenting a wonderful tableau for them– the sky seemed bluer, the air smelled fresher, the flowers and birds were more brilliantly etched in the skies for them. That has been true of love after sixty for me.
I’ve learned that I am about as boring a topic as I can conjure up. On the other hand, I find my partner endlessly fascinating, mysterious and delightful. I want to spend more time listening and hearing, more time simply engaged with them. In turn, that “other-focus” puts me into a position to see the world as far more intense and colorful, brilliant and enticing. I know there is no longer time for me to experience everything I want, but there is time to experience things more deeply and passionately.
I find that the small stuff has gotten smaller. Little annoyances disappear, and big annoyances diminish.
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I find that the small stuff has gotten smaller. Little annoyances disappear, and big annoyances diminish. It’s a lot easier now to see what’s important and what isn’t. I don’t waste as much time getting ready, or fretting about the next step. I just perceive it, and do it. If it doesn’t work out, I can always extract a lesson from it. When I was younger, when something didn’t work out, I was fierce about being spited, and looked for someone else to blame.
Now, I own a lot more of the problem, and possess a lot less of it. I can move on more easily, I don’t get trapped in a tar pit of self-recrimination and blaming. I realize that all the time I spend fulminating I could use to make my relationship more sane and loving. It seems obvious, but it was a lesson I learned only by passing sixty. By then, things become less confusing and more obvious, if you apprehend the lessons you’ve been experiencing all along.
Finally, I understand to the deepest part of my being, that in the end, all of the beauty of the world is enhanced by sharing it with someone. “Did you see that?” seems to me to be an important thing, and something I never said often enough when I was younger. It’s right up there with “What do you think?” and “Isn’t that wonderful?” as stuff my post sixty-self wants to say more of.
I’ve surpassed sixty and found a love that doesn’t harbor regrets.
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I’ve surpassed sixty and found a love that doesn’t harbor regrets. Oddly, I don’t wish I had more time, or lament that my partner and I didn’t find each other sooner. Instead, I walk around grinning in awe at the loveliness of this sunset love; I stand in each minute I have fully aware of the grace I have found, and steeped in gratitude.
Will it work out? Will my partner and I find one bed to share, one community to build, one life to twin ourselves in? I don’t know. What will be … will be. I control what I can, and turn the rest over to the universe, which has granted me a significant favor here.
That isn’t patience. It’s wisdom.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
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Good for you. Find your best friend of the opposite sex. Or same sex if that be the case. Whatever. The point is the slow burn of commitment.