We could use a tired metaphor about fruit

That is battered and bruised and shriveled

And how love is blind

To those glaring imperfections.

But that would be lazy, so I’ll do away

With poetic devices and ask what I want,

Do I have less chance of finding a love,

And when it is found, what is it like?

Can it be passionate or is it dulled down?

It’s colours muted, a sepia dream?

I am hurtling towards forty and while that is not old by any stretch of the imagination, it is an age that I’m sure makes a lot of us stop and think when we reach it. In an average life, it’s half way and that seems like the perfect time to pause and take stock.

And one of the things that I’m thinking about a lot is my lack of love. I think that after my childhood experiences and then a disastrous marriage when I was so young, I’ve scared myself away from it. It’s strange because I’m terrified of it and I also pine for it.

And now that I’m past that ‘normal’ age when people fall in love and get married and have a passionate relationship, I wonder what any relationship would look like. Would it even look any different?

I hear a lot of celebrities who have found love in their forties and later, and their love sounds so sweet. Perhaps understanding that life doesn’t have a neat ending like it does in the movies makes us approach love in a whole new way?

I’m ready to find somebody to share my life with, but that fear that has plagued my life will most definitely make it look different to that ideal that I’ve held in my head. But maybe that could lead to something better. Has anyone else out there met their love later on? Any thoughts?

Much Love

(And Happy New Year)

Rachel xx