Time not only flies, it whizzes by. I was just getting out of my teens, and before I knew it, I was married, widowed and alone at the twilight of a very long day that seemed as though it had barely begun.

What do you do when you are over 80, and are expected to head for a home—not the kind you’ve lived in all your life, but one that is inhabited by strangers with whom you are supposed to live out the rest of your years, no matter how many?

Fortunately, my husband and I had saved enough over the years that I was now able to enjoy my leisure, expand my intellectual horizons, and give back to the community in mutually satisfying ways. But as much as I was enjoying my freedom to do exactly as I chose, in reality, I was missing the sharing that only a male/female relationship could bring me. Because I knew enough about how to navigate through the choppy waters of cyberspace, I had no excuse not to log onto an Internet dating site and sign up. It was discouraging to see all the men who admitted to being in their 70s, looked more like 80+, and were in search of women in their 40s. No point in hanging out in that neck of the woods, so I did some serious surfing in other corners of the Net and found an article that talked about how boomers and seniors were experiencing a satisfying new stage of their lives by joining the Peace Corps. What an interesting concept, I thought.

Without hesitation, I signed on for a two-year stint in a remote village in Africa, and was determined to write a book about my experiences. It took no longer than the flight over there to meet the man with whom I would share that extraordinary period, and by the time we had fulfilled our commitment, I had written my book, he had shot a documentary, and we both flew back to the U.S. together. Within a week, we assembled our families and friends, and were married in a candlelit ceremony in my hometown.

While we do not have our entire life to look forward to together, we do have the rest of it, however long it may be—and we are completely dedicated to making up for lost time. We are content in the knowledge that whatever the future holds, we have each other. In my line of reasoning, that makes us twice as powerful as before, and only half as old.