I am in my late 50s, single, and never wished to marry. I have a 27-year-old son who was conceived by choice when I lived in Europe. His father knew of him when I introduced them 10 years ago.

My son is quite happy with his life, fiercely independent and a successful artist.

I’m a professor in a university and happy with my job. The younger instructors think I am too strict and have given me the moniker “terror.” I’ve lived abroad too long to beat around the bush and I always believed it’s best to go straight to the point.

That’s when this newly appointed associate professor caught my attention. He is younger than me, well-educated, recently separated from his wife who’s living abroad, has no kids, and communicates like me. His co-professors think he’s a bit prickly because he is fearless when he speaks his mind. But he is appreciated by the powers-that-be and those who value honesty and integrity.

For the first time in many years, I am developing feelings for him which I have successfully ignored before. He is very friendly to me and takes time to join me in the canteen almost always, and visits my office unexpectedly just for small talk. I have not encouraged him, but he is nice and friendly anyway.

Lately, I am again a teenager,  selecting my clothes carefully in the morning and thinking about him constantly. I am too old to be playing this game and being coy about his motives, don’t you think?

SOFT YET FIRM

There is nothing so uplifting, so joyous, so dreamy, so romantic than the first stages of courting. You’re both feeling your way around each other, trying to decipher the nuances of each word uttered or action taken, and latching on to whatever adds up to the growing relationship between the two of you.

You’re a big girl. You can handle it. Nothing beats having that glow of contentment in your face and that anticipation of the coming tomorrow before you close your eyes to sleep.

If this relationship doesn’t go out to sea and merely hits a dry bed, so be it. It wasn’t meant to be. Hopefully, a warm friendship ensues.

But what if it goes out to sea and the friendship turns to a love that is as deep and as wide?   Think of all the fun and adventure you’d both have.

Savor the journey, if it has indeed started. Go with the flow, neither hurrying nor tarrying. No need to be coy or allow age to constrict it. Enjoy whatever lies ahead.

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