What I Learned From A 60 Year Old About Love

Recently, I had a turn of events in my life that made me examine the way romantic love manifests in our life. As a writer, I spend a lot of my day musing about subjects and then bouncing them off other people. It’s often through talking to other people that I get ideas for the pieces I write. But because I was mentally exhausted in many ways, I was trying to avoid talking about relationships or love for a few days.

But of course, its when you don’t want to deal with something that it comes up in the most unexpected ways.

I met with an old mentor of mine, who I hadn’t seen in over a year. As we spoke, we touched on all topics, such as work, school, and money. We talked for over an hour and then decided to walk to a nearby art gallery. As we walked, I asked about her life and if she had any updates. I was talking way too much about myself. As she began to update me, I thought, here was this woman who was in her 60’s, had an amazing career as a journalist, a beautiful apartment, and the time and money to travel and work on her own. I was in awe of her and she was my mentor for a reason. I wanted to be this woman. As she spoke, she touched on a conversation she had with a friend.

My mentor had been married twice before and currently had no partner. For the ten years I knew her, she seemed content at being single. In fact every time I had trouble with a man, I thought about her. Why couldn’t I be content being single? She did it with such ease. She lived a good life.

The conversation she touched on was about her friend reminiscing about one of my mentor’s ex-boyfriends and said she could tell how much this man loved my mentor. My mentor looked at me and said, “This idea of visible love, of someone being able to see how much you love them was interesting to me. It interested me, because I did not love him. In fact, I loved none of the men I married or had serious relationships with.” This shocked me, because the idea of marrying someone or being with someone you don’t love baffled me. She took my confused silence as an opportunity to continue. She started telling me how each of her most serious relationships had grand passion but not love.

“Each of the men I was with were great. Had successful careers, looked great next to me, offered consistency and got the approval of the world I was trying to impress. However, no love. They didn’t know me and all I wanted to do was fix them. Our relationships were transactional.” She said.

The word transactional hit me, so I asked her to elaborate. She started telling me how every man she got with offered her something that was a commodity in her life. Her relationships were the typical power couple set up, but she didn’t get the emotional support she needed. “The love you need to last with someone and make you want to work at that relationship, is important. I never had that, because I cared more about what everyone else thought.” I believe at this point I said the word wow, because even though I was avoiding the topic of love, she was saying things that were eerily familiar.

As the wind blew in our faces, she stopped walking and looked at me. I stopped as well. Then she started firing off questions,

“Can you sit and talk in depth with your partner? Can you love them even when not with them? Can you love them, even when they can’t give you anything back? Can you love them even when you walk away? Can you love them without the approval of society? I couldn’t. Its why I got divorced. I was never in love with any of the men I was with.”

I was taken aback by these questions and by the fact that this 60-year-old woman who was so successful, was never in love despite having many relationships. Here I was thinking she had it all and she was telling me, a 22 year old, that she never experienced this emotion. So after I regained my composure, I asked her, “What now?”

“I don’t know. I am left asking myself what do I want? Not anyone else, me. I would like to love. It’s the only thing left.” She turned and looked at me, “Ask yourself what do I want? It’s the most important question.”

I nodded and absorbed her words. As we walked, I thought about how she just gave me the best lesson ever. What do I want? I have forty more years until I reach her age, and I promise to always ask myself, What do I want?