Your post resonated with me, that poignant sense of time’s passing. The podcast Psychology In Seattles offers an amazing deep dive on Dependent Personality Disorder, and addresses it occasionally. I’m not sure if it’s a Patreon episode, but it’s hours long. It seems to be about an early childhood that forbids self sufficiency in a way that instilled a deep but hidden anger - a constant double bind. Does that sound wrong or not attuned? How do you describe DPD? Therapists like to say we are hurt in relationship and heal in relationship, but that is easy to say and hard to do.
My grandfather fell madly in love at 71, and lived into his 90’s. It’s never over.