Falling In Love After 50: A High-flying Adventure
Fall in love after 50. Four or five decades ago, this was a practically impossible option. At that age it was assumed that everything in your life was resolved and instead of starting something new, you had to conclude what was pending. It was an age to dedicate to grandchildren and not to boyfriends.
Things have changed a lot. It’s not that falling in love after 50 has become a common situation, but it is much more common than it was in the past. In other times it was also possible, but mental and social barriers prevented it from happening more frequently.
When we talk about the human, the rules that work are less than we think. A person can go to college at 80 or discover that they are an excellent singer at 60 or start a career at 12. Although there are certain patterns that are predominant, no experience is forbidden to us by age. So falling in love after 50 is perfectly possible and healthy.
The ages of life
The subject of age and the characteristics of each age are also relative. There are no sharp divisions that make an absolute and radical difference between a teenager and an old man, or between a child and a young man. We are not a structured body that moves linearly through life. We are inhabited by many “me” with different ages.
In our hearts there is still the child who is amazed to see a firefly. There is also that wise and measured old man, who sometimes speaks within us when we are 20 years old and makes himself noticed more often when we are 60. There is also the adolescent and the young. Age is a convention and a biological determination that is relativized in the mental and emotional world.
That said, there are those who think that falling in love after 50 is not the same as falling in love at 17. They are wrong. Also in the fifth decade, butterflies can appear in the stomach that flap their wings with great intensity. You also blush at 54 and your hands get sweaty when you see your new love, at 57.
Fall in love after 50
Statistics tell us that divorces in their 50s are relatively common. Many people at that age, when they still feel young and strong, decide to end a relationship with which they were not satisfied. The same one in which they endured until the children grew up.
Other times just at that age there is a warning signal. The finitude of life is a fact that gains awareness. That is why it is not uncommon to find people who are alone at 50, recently divorced and perhaps with an interest in falling in love again.
There is no reason why you cannot or should not fall in love after 50. It is not easy either. It is difficult for admirers to arrive at your door or there are magical coincidences that lead you to love. In many cases it is necessary to do an exercise in open-mindedness; on many occasions the new love comes through new experiences.
The limits and the possibilities
The good thing about those late loves is that, even if they live the infatuation stage intensely, they are more likely to land on a more realistic feeling, without the disappointments that we can take in our 20s. They will not watch with great nostalgia, nor with surprise, that forced landing. There is a greater capacity to accept the other as they are, without idealizing them.
What is a disadvantage is to match the lifestyles. Over the years, it is not easy to change with certain established customs, perhaps we are more understanding, but less flexible.
We must also accept that, after certain ages, love is usually expressed more with attitudes and actions than with words. On the other hand, falling in love becomes more of a simmering stew: the person better understands the significance of certain changes, is more aware that what they do, that their choice of partner can affect others. In any case, the serenity of a mature love does not make it less exciting or that similar sensations are experienced when making certain bets.
