Love at Any Age
Finding love while young is an expected gift:
puppy love, first love, young love.
Time full of breathless promises,
castles in the sky, knowing the two will be together forever.
All will be perfect, the young know.
After all, how hard can it be, this thing called love, the road called marriage?
People smile and nod knowingly, “Ah, yes, young love.”
Finding love when no longer young, when, dare we say, middle age has laid its claim;
finding love then is a joy and wonder to behold: a surprise,
at times perhaps a shock.
It makes people nervous to have folks who are definitely not kids
find one another and recognize a mate,
a lover, a partner.
To watch the blush with joy at the mention of the dear one’s name.
Some people say, “Hold your horses; take your time; wait a few years to be sure.”
However, when one is no longer young, time becomes more precious.
Waiting becomes something you have already done a lot of - for a long time.
At times it can seem that you waited forever to finally be together.
At times it seems that you always have been.
When you are older, you no longer believe in the fairy tale notion of living happily ever after
just happening.
Older (and we hope wiser) lovers know that love takes work and negotiation and compromise
and even a rousing fight upon occasion,
because the two, although in connection, are not the same.
And having lived a long time without the other leaves one with, shall we say “opinions”
and ways of doing things and rhythms of rising and sleeping and going –
rhythms that can create a song, no, a symphony together,
but only if each in turn plays their heart out, not holding back,
yet holding the other in their heart, full of wonder and beauty
and finding in each day in each other the unexpected gift
the gift of years ahead together that couldn’t have been glimpsed
when you were fifteen or twenty or thirty-seven
a gift that should be honored with approving smiles and wild whoops
and stardust from the angels
and God’s applause
and even poems written by old friends
from younger days in honor of the love of those no longer young.
Finding love while young is an expected gift,
yet finding it while no longer young is extravagant,
unexpected
but very, very welcome.