Hope in the oddest places....

Last week I was talking to my patient. She is around her mid to late 70s. She says I am easy to talk to, she says I should charge her for also being her therapist ... that makes me laugh, but I'm glad she feels she can talk to me.

Anyhow, I mentioned going to a naturopathic Doctor myself for something and she mentioned to me:
"Well, you know what is a good cure for most things, hehe" she says with a smirk.
"Oh No! your not the only one who mentioned that too me! Thats too funny!" I say, not wanting her to finish her sentence, and laugh it off.
"Well. I'm telling you.... its true!" She insists
(Im thinking: Oh good gawd pleeeeeease dont tell me details of your sex life lady, first of all I dont want to hear it and second of all ..... you are in your 70s! and you are my patient! this is soooo wrong!)
But I did find it amusing and she is the kinda senior that is straight forward and very liberal but very tactful. So she goes on to continue...
"Ah you know....." She says thoughtfully
"there are those times when I feel myself getting old and I get down about it. I feel like...... you know what they say........ a flower that has lost its bloom, like life has faded away for me.....with all these problems I keep getting......" (she has Arthritis everywhere and is in pain most of the time and she walks with a cane)
"but then I think back..... you know if you ever find your true love that is the best thing you can ever have in life....I think back to my true love"
Because of how much I know about her life and our previous talks I mention "That wasnt your ex-husband was it?"
"No no not him..... I was in my 40s and this young man was ....... well lets just say he was too young to say" She explains
I burst out "OH MY!!!!" (as in - you go girl!) hehe " well you know what they say" I told her "women peak in their 40s and men peak in their 20s"
"Oh you said it!" She agrees. "oh he was my first love and I thought : oh no this cant be! And even my sister said : what on earth are you doing!?....but I took the jump..... I didnt care what others thought.....and let me tell you ....... I am very glad I did it.....we were so in love...he was wonderful ! And it was amazing too!" (ok this is when I laughed out loud with her and partly hoped that she would not go further into details)
And she didnt, she just re-iterated that in times when she was down now, she thinks of the chance she took on love long ago and does not regret her life and the way she lived it, and that at least, at one moment in time she was sooo happy, enough to bring her happiness now when she thinks back on it. I never asked how it ended. She did mention to me that she saw him again when she was with her grandson on the streetcar but decided to leave things as they were and not approach him.

Funny enough as this is, it kinda was nice to hear. Me, in my struggles with singledom, thinking sometimes that I have missed the boat, or that my time had come and passed and I missed alot of chances.... it kinda gives me hope .....(Mind you - the Ashton Kutshner and Demi Moore thing is not for me -- I find the whole situation with them alittle odd - but hey whatever works for them) ... And if this patient of mine found the love of her life not in her first husband but in her 40s
........then it gives me even just alittle tiny weeny bit of hope that I have yet to reach my peak in life myself....
Lets hope anyways.