Essay: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/style/modern-love-the-race-grows-sweeter-near-its-final-lap.html
The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap
This article is another modern love season 1 story, this essay describing two people, ages 70 and 80 falling in love. Celebrating their 150th joint birthday party, falling in love the old way- as two young people do. I found this very interesting as usually we regard marriage, or love to slowly fade as you get older- but in this case, the author- Eve Pell actually describes how it got sweeter for her. Falling in love with Sam, enjoying her life- travelling, a continuous honeymoon, training for the Olympics, winning gold at 70 and 80 years old before Sam finally meets his end with an unfortunate diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. I believe this story got selected for modern love as it contrasts a societal stigma- by conveying the message that love can blossom at any age.
Well, it wasn’t the Olympics Olympics —it was an age-limited thing, right?
But your larger point: that the essay challenges the conventional “romantic” paradigm of being a young people’s story . . . that’s true. It’s probably my least favorite of the TV episodes, so I’m not sure we’ll make time for it, but the essay is definitely worthwhile. I’m glad you read it.