Late Bloomer

The expression Late Bloomer is used to describe someone who fulfills their potential later than usual. It can apply to an adolescent who goes through puberty later than expected, or a young adult who finds a career path later than his or her peers. It is rarely used for a senior… yet I believe that for some of us, late blooming can occur even at that time in our lives.

For me, it was only after the responsibilities of a busy life—working hard as a student through graduate school, finding a partner and getting married, getting established in a productive career, and raising children—that I could fully look inward to begin to understand what parts of myself had been neglected. I wanted to find what else life had to offer, and what I wanted to nurture and develop in myself. Although I retired from my career as a research scientist several years ago, I did not feel that my involvement in life was diminishing in interests or activities. In fact, I was just getting started.

I had a dear aunt who lived a full life, with career, spouse and children, and died at 90. She had a loving relationship with her husband, but he always seemed to be the decision maker as to what they would do and who they would visit. He also was the primary spokesperson for the two of them, and she often seemed reticent to speak when she was with him. She lovingly cared for him in his final years and had many wonderful memories of their more than 50 years of marriage. After a period of mourning she became active in seeing her friends and family, and attending the cultural events, including jazz concerts, that she so loved throughout her life.  During this time, she told me that she felt like a rose that was just starting to open up! How wonderful I thought, at last she felt free and open to the world, and ready to experience it even more fully than in her earlier years.

Perhaps it is when we are finished with many of the tasks and responsibilities that life gives us—some chosen and some not—that we can appreciate what life has to offer. It is time to find and enjoy those parts of ourselves that have been unexplored.  

So I now choose to apply a late bloomer status to myself and other seniors who initiate or explore interests and  activities that we didn’t have the time to do when we were younger.

Abi Gezundt was one of the Yiddish expressions my mother would say about things she was planning, meaning as long as she stayed healthy.  Health and energy are certainly concerns as I get older. But activities that in the past I could complete in a morning, like visiting several exhibits in a museum, I can now do over two or three days. Also, there are more options available for some activities, including attending virtual classes in new areas of interest, rather than having to go in person.

Certainly, at some point in life, some ambitions and desires may pass the blooming possibilities… especially those that require physical stamina, like becoming a marathon runner, or that involve many years of training and education that no longer seem possible, like becoming a physician.  But- Alan Petricoff did the NYC marathon in 2022 at age 88, and Atomic Leow was 66 in 2015 when he graduated from medical school in Romania. So perhaps some of the possibilities that we now discount as impossible, are not.

I am ready to explore, and have started some new activities, including volunteer work with immigrants, writing a blog, and visiting people and cultural sites that I never had time to explore in the past. And I and a friend have taken on the goal of walking across all the bridges that lead out of Manhattan, which I see as a symbol of my plans for new journeys, some not yet identified.  I always liked the Charles Aznavour song Yesterday, When I Was Young, and  felt especially wistful at the line There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung. But perhaps that doesn’t have to be true after all…  we can all sing longer and later than we ever anticipated.