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Exploring “too late.”
I was thinking of The Madness of Art and how an artist can, at the late stage of their life, change themselves. They might have an epiphany. If I want to shift the context, I can imagine someone in their final days discovering their Favorite things for the first time. It’s as if they spent their whole day in the dark and suddenly saw dawn. You hear of those people who are shockingly, wrongly convicted and later exonerated after spending the majority of their life in jail.
These are extreme cases and I am wandering in my thoughts here.
But I thought to myself of all of the people who are older and find love. My parents met when they were younger and have shared an entire lifetime (my very own) together. Their anniversary is greater than my age. Similarly, my grandparents all had long lasting relationships.
At this point, if I were to get into those situation I’m not even sure I’d live to count all of those days together with a loved one. To match a 50 year anniversary I’d need to be 86, and begin now. I think a lot of people have the strong desire to live their life with someone, and experience and share those memories - not to simply tell tales of them to their beloved. Necessarily, our senses and access to activities changes with age. I won’t see her so clearly. We can’t hike.
I am not saying that I am late at love, and even if I were making that case, love comes when it may for a number of reasons and it should generally be accepted.
But I write this because I had a sense of playing around with the idea of a love that is “too late” and the mixed sorrow it made me feel.
Like someone meeting the love of their life at age 80. They bump into each other at the market and smile across the years. They share a brilliant decade together. Though they don’t share all of their life’s memories, they understand and accept.
But nothing is for granted, for anyone in love - but there is a difference here due to age.