“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus
By sixty, you’d think things might have settled into shape—and I’m not referring to the physique, which is, let’s face it, in steady decline. I mean having a partner with whom you share a few familiar rituals. Someone who knows your silences. Someone who doesn’t ask how your day was because they were in it. Someone who annoys you just enough that you’re forced to smile.
You know—that kind of knowing that exists between two worn souls. The kind that brings a strange serenity, where the tension between annoyance and comfort is its own kind of peace.
Instead, I find myself here. Sixty. Single. Mostly content. Sometimes caught off guard by my own reflection. And asking—not with regret, not with drama, just quietly—how the fuck did this happen?
It’s the kind of question that doesn’t need a spotlight. It arrives in stillness. In the morning. Over coffee. When you catch a glimpse of a couple laughing about nothing in particular and feel something unnameable tugging at your heartstrings.
I haven’t been alone—or “single,” as it’s formally called—all my life. I’ve mostly been partnered in some form or another. I’ve felt love—well, at least I think I have. I haven’t always recognised it at the time. I missed cues. Waited for louder declarations. Thought love had to be Shakespearean to be real.
I used to suffer from what I call invisibility syndrome—that self-absorbed sense of not being fully seen—when the truth is, I probably was. I just didn’t know how to recognise it. Or I failed to stay still long enough to believe it.
And I haven’t always handled relationships gracefully. Don’t be fooled by my surname—in love, I am no Swan – classically ungraceful. Sometimes I stayed too long. Other times, I left too late. I drifted when I should have spoken up. I started soft landings that turned into crash exits. Not because I didn’t care—but because I didn’t always know how to navigate the space between “not working” and “goodbye.”
Turns out, no one really teaches you how to end things kindly. You either figure it out, or you learn the hard way.
I learned the hard way. And still, I keep fucking up.
But the wider lens helps spin some kind of narrative around the patterns—fills in the jigsaw pieces, or at least provides a convenient excuse. The story didn’t start at fifty, or forty. It started much earlier. Probably with a white boy in Africa staring out the bus window at cars burning. Or the echo of a father’s friend quietly observing, “Strange boy you have there… stares into space a lot.”
I arrived in Australia as a kid—displaced, re-routed, and a little disoriented. My family fractured early. Boarding school. A foster home. I was learning to survive in a country that didn’t feel like mine, while slowly losing my footing in the one I came from. I had to adapt fast. Smile quickly. Fight a bit. Figure things out before anyone explained them.
Sometimes I think that scrap by the creek with a kid they called Bush Chook says more about me than most adult stories ever could. Not because I won—but because I didn’t want to fight him at all. A circle of boys egging us on, fists ready. I turned to walk away. He jumped me from behind. I had no choice then—I fought back. He ended up on the ground. And oddly enough, we ended up friends. Not because I beat him, but because I never wanted to hurt him in the first place. I just wanted things to settle. For everyone to get along.
That part of me never really changed. I don’t like confrontation. I’m geared toward harmony. And while that might look like avoidance or people pleasing to some, it’s usually just me trying to sidestep drama and protect everyone involved—including myself. It’s not cowardice. It’s a kind of quiet hopefulness, I guess. That things might resolve on their own if we can just breathe for a moment.
And when you grow up like that, you get good at avoidance. Not always at staying put.
I don’t carry resentment. I try to carry perspective. That kind of start in life teaches you to see what most people miss. It makes you alert to the people living on the outside edge of things. It gave me a kind of empathy that sometimes gets misread as aloofness—or worse, cowardice. But really, it’s just a quiet understanding that life doesn’t unfold evenly for everyone, and that most of us are just doing what we can with what we were handed.
That’s how I’ve lived. Chasing meaning. Working across borders. Following purpose over predictability. I’ve said yes to things that made my world bigger, even if it made roots harder to grow.
But I’ve also been lucky—so lucky. I’ve loved people who are still in my life. I’m still in touch with my high school sweetheart. I’m close friends with my ex-wife. We raised children together, and we still respect each other. That’s no small thing. That’s rare. I know that, and I feel blessed. I hear too many stories of people who despise their ex and have no contact.
And I’ve lost people too. The kind of loss that stops you mid-sentence. Death doesn’t always give you time to prepare. Friends. Family. A brother you thought you’d grow old with—gone. No warning. Just a quiet, cruel absence. It humbles you. It leaves you no choice but to pay attention. And it reminds you that life is random. It hardens you in places no one sees—only feels.
So yes, I’m sixty and single. And yes, I still sometimes look around and think, what the actual fuck happened? But I do it with a full heart. With a grin, even. Because I’ve lived—and continue to live—a life with edges. I’ve learned things late. I’ve fumbled through love and friendship and grief. And I’m still here—thinking, laughing, reflecting. Still creating. Still writing songs no one hears. Because at the essence of it, I create for myself—not for anyone else.
The other day, I watched a young labradoodle bound into a café—tail wild, nose twitching, joyfully chaotic. And for a moment, I thought: yep… that’s me. Still a bit restless. Still curious and excitable. But not lost.
Maybe that’s what this age gives you: a bit more peace with your contradictions. The freedom to tell the truth, without needing to justify it.
So here I am. Sitting in a café. Watching the world. Grateful.
And wondering, in the most affectionate, philosophical way possible—
how the fuck did this happen?