I am 67 years old. My whole existence has revolved around habitclockwork days, tidy and unchanging. For 42 years, I worked at the same bank, behind the same desk, perched on the same squeaky chair. When retirement finally arrived, it felt less like a celebration and more like a chapter that refused to end. I never married. No children ever filled my flat with crayons and laughter. I still live alone in the same snug little apartment I first rented when I was 28.
People have always asked me:
So, when are you getting married, Alan?
Dont you get lonely?
What will you do when you get older?
And Id give my well-rehearsed answers:
One day, when I meet the right woman.
When I have a bit more time.
When my savings look a bit healthier.
When…
Always “when.”
I thought, once I retired: now, finally, Ill travel, learn new things, live a little. But the days drifted by all the samewaking up, eggs on toast, the morning news, then the paper, a walk to the shops, home, television until I nodded off.
Three months ago, I had a bit of a scare with my health. The doctor, brisk and cheery, looked over his glasses and said, Youre in good shape for your age, but you are 67, Alan. Get yourself out and about. Keep moving.
But out where? With whom?
Only last week, I was shuffling past the park near my buildinga place Id walked by but never through. On a whim, I entered. A man not much younger than me sat by the duck pond, sketching at an easel. His strokes were awkward, but something about the swaying willow trees and glinting water he captured was lovely.
Do you like it? he called out, not looking up.
Yes, you paint very well, I replied.
He chuckled, shaking his head. Not really. Ive only been at it a year. Im hopeless, but it makes me happy.
You started painting at, what, sixty-something?
At sixty-eight, he said. All my life I said I wanted to paint. Then one day I wonderedwhy not now? I already lost sixty-eight years to one day. I refuse to lose any more.
His words rattled around my mind for days.
Yesterday, when I faced myself in the bathroom mirror, I saw a man of 67 whod spent forty years waiting for life to begin. Waiting for the perfect moment, ideal company, for… something I couldnt even name.
Yesterday, in an odd, dreamlike impulse, I drifted into a music shop and bought myself a guitar. Id always wanted to playalways said, Someday. Then I enrolled in a beginners Italian classIve always fancied seeing Italy, but used to think, Whats the sense in travelling alone?
And still in that surreal haze, I bought a ticket to Rome. Four months from now. Ill go by myself. And thats perfectly all right.
This afternoon, I practised on my guitar for a full hour. I sounded dreadful. My fingers fumbled clumsily over the frets. But in my cosy little flat, I laughed at the racketat the very sound of trying.
Thats when something dawned on me: Id spent 67 years waiting for permission. For the right person, the right time, the right circumstances. But no one is going to knock on my door and say, Now, Alan, now you may be happy.
Im 67. Maybe Ill get ten more years, maybe twenty, maybe fewer. But Im determined to fill those years. Ill play poor guitar. Speak hopeless Italian. Paint crooked landscapes. Ill travel alone, probably get lostand itll be brilliant.
Because, at the end, I dont want to remember all the things I never tried while I waited for everything to be right. I want to remember that I triedthat I lived, and was happy, in my own strange way.
You dont need company to begin living.
You dont need to be young.
You dont have to be good at something to enjoy it.
You only have to decide that, today, the dream begins.
