‘I‘m sad that it took me forty-five years to understand what real love is,’ I said to my mother on the phone. ‘I wasted so much of my life.’
‘Be happy you figured it out at all,’ she said. ‘The lady next door lost her husband last week. She is in her seventies. She has spent her whole life in a miserable marriage. You’re one of the lucky ones.’
And as usual, my mother is right.