MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
First-Time Love After 50
It's not the flowers, gifts or candle-lit dinners. While those are lovely, it's the everyday, little things that stack up. I know I'm a serious piece of work. Complicated. So is my husband. "Our love, beats the stops and starts, of complicated hearts."
At 52, I had found the love of my life. We have each come to this union via our own paths -- individual joys and sorrows. It is right timing. We truly see each other; that is the most magnificent gift of all.
And when you fall in love, and you will, he will kiss the crinkles around your eyes and mouth, the fine lines on your neck certain to deepen one day like rings in an old tree. He will hold your still mostly firm breasts and delight in watching your buttocks walk away.
Approaching my 55th birthday I said a prayer, 'Please let true love come into my life at this stage of my journey.' A couple of years later I was on a plane headed home from a speaking engagement in Chicago. A few minutes later, with cellphone in hand, a tall handsome gentleman strode up the aisle.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
We were in love with each other. I had found 'The One' for the first time. And the memories Tom and I shared as a couple, together, over the years, are frozen in time and keep my love warm to this day. It has been a magical ride.
My cousin remarried -- just shy (by a month) of age 50 -- about three years ago. We live in different states and don't see each other, but thanks to Facebook, I feel connected and up-to-date on her life. After she met her new love, it was broadcast on Facebook like a classic, modern love story.
One of the delectable things I found out about being with a grown up is: they WANT to connect! And he opened me up to that feeling of "partners" again ... NOT to be a wife (we have both done enough marriages thank you) ... but loving again ... and in a new way.
At age 60 I'd given up hope that I would ever find my One, or even sleep with anyone again, as I was so set in my ways. Then I was stunned to discover divorced, smart, 60-ish, handsome Stan online.
Sometimes love takes time ... and we should know. Bill and I met in kindergarten in 1962 and went to school together through high school. We always liked each other, but it wasn't until the ripe age of 53 that our orbits finally aligned and we were together, as it should have been all along!
I live in one of the most romantic towns in the world, San Miguel de Allende, and I had not had a single date since I arrived 15 years ago. I arrived depressed, hoping to disappear into the life of an expat in Mexico, after closing my beloved independent bookstore in Berkeley and filing for divorce.
