Six Word Memoirs on Life Stories

Backstory

This is going to sound insane, but until I reached the age of 50, I didn’t know that you were “allowed” to enjoy life. Such an indulgence never crossed my mind. Until then, I thought life was about working hard whether or not you liked what you were doing, facing responsibilities that often weighed far too heavily upon you, attending to everyone else’s needs but your own. What changed at 50 was a confluence of events: my daughter was now on her own and self-supporting; my elderly father, who I had been caring for, passed away; I was approaching the age at which my mother had died. Convinced it was now or never, I started doing the things I’d denied myself. I quit working. I started traveling (London, Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Tokyo). The icing on the cake was meeting the right woman, a connection due entirely to my new outlook.