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When I was 62, having travelled the world, raised a child and wrapped up my career, I decided to do something I had never seriously considered before. I got married.
My friends and family reacted with shock and awe when I informed them about the upcoming wedding. They had regarded me as single for life. To be fair, while I had boyfriends over the years, the relationships never got to the point of moving in together, or rarely even meeting my family.
As I recount in my memoir, Update: Reporting from an Ancient Land, I came of age during the wave of feminism in the 1970s, when young women were encouraged to pursue careers previously closed to them. My first job was as a reporter for my hometown newspaper, and I went on to work for newspapers abroad, eventually becoming a CNN correspondent based in Cairo and Rome in my early 30s.
Most of my friends were single and thriving, unworried about a then-popular, now-debunked statistic that a single woman was more likely to be in a terrorist attack than to marry after age 40. I actually was in a terrorist attack — the bombing of an empty tourist bus in Egypt — and briefly wondered if the odds had shifted in my favor. But it was an idle thought, not something I desired. On assignment in India, I had my fortune told by a trained parrot that assured me I would get married someday.
I scoffed.
Yet conversely, I always wanted to be a mother. It took more than a year to complete the paperwork required for international adoption. On a cold November day in Moscow, I stood in front of a judge in a courtroom lit by rays of sunlight beaming through high windows. She looked me in the eyes and said gently, “Congratulations. You are a mother.”
I’d expected her to approve my petition to adopt the orphaned baby girl I’d been matched with, but it still felt like a shock. Tears filled my eyes, and I let out an involuntary sob. Just like that, I was a mom.
I eventually left CNN and moved to Washington, DC, where I relished my role as a single mother by choice. My daughter shared my sense of adventure, so we trekked to historical re-enactments, Lego festivals, trade fairs, sheep herding competitions. Sometimes, in our little brick house, I would be reading on my bed, and my daughter would lie next to me with her own book and we would be joined by both of our cats.
I felt safe, like the mattress was a raft floating serenely along with my little family all together.
When I dropped my daughter off for her freshman year of college, I ugly cried the whole way home. Fortunately, though, I had found an additional travel partner — a smart, tall lawyer with a dry wit and a disdain for clutter equal to my own. Our first date was in a bookshop, which seemed somehow apt, a new chapter in my life.
Later that year, we travelled separately to Amsterdam since I needed to arrive in advance to attend a conference. Our flights home were only 20 minutes apart, so we navigated our way together through airport security and then hit a literal wall. He went to one side because his flight connected through Europe, while I was shuffled to the other side with those traveling straight to the United States.
I was surprised when a lump rose unexpectedly in my throat. I didn’t want to be separated. I wanted to be with him.
We could have dispensed with marriage and just continued as partners. While I was raising my daughter solo, he was bringing up his own two remarkable children after the loss of his wife. We had separate homes and finances. And yet, that feeling I had in the Amsterdam airport grew stronger still. One evening, I took a long walk in the light rain, and when I came back, I told him I wanted to be his wife.
I am a rarity, but I’m not alone. Only 7 percent of women who reach 60 have never been married. But a recent NIH study indicates that more women — like me — are marrying for the first time much later in life. The report cites the number of women entering a first marriage between the ages of 40 and 59 as rising from 2 percent in 1990 to 9 percent by 2019.
Although the study cuts off before 60, it seems likely the trend is continuing among women reaching retirement age as well. Census data indicate that older single adults in general are not giving up on love, with many who have been divorced or widowed saying “I do” to new relationships.
When you’re older, you know what and who you want in your life. Chemistry, yes, but also financial security, shared ethics and agreement over how a dishwasher is properly loaded.
Having never planned or thought about a wedding, I made rookie mistakes. But our children, friends and families came together in a walled garden on a warm, starry night. My daughter made our wedding cake. The string quartet played hits from the 1980s. My 90-year-old mom was confused but beaming.
At 65, I’m facing new adventures with a partner by my side.
Have any of you found love later in life? Let us know in the comments below.
Follow Article Topics: Relationships
