The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #11)

by Louise Penny

This isn’t our parents’ generation, Armand. Now people have many chapters to their lives. When I stopped being a therapist I asked myself one question. What do I really want to do? Not for my friends, not for my family. Not for perfect strangers. But for me. Finally. It was my turn, my time.

Now this is a question that, on the surface, should be easy for a person in late middle-age to answer. What do I really want? What gives me pleasure. And yet, I’ve found it’s surprisingly difficult to answer. We’re just so imbued with the expectations of others. Of parents, of teachers, of neighbours, of the broader society. The start of this realization came shortly after I met Michael. We were at the Montreal Symphony, using his season tickets. As we left he turned to me and said, “I don’t think I like going to the symphony.” He went on to say that he’d sat there and realized his parents had taken him, then his first wife had taken him, and he’d never asked the question….what does he want? He was 61 years old at the time, and I was astonished. Then I began questioning my choices, as an adult, and realized how much of it was driven by what others told me I should be doing. What do you want? Hmmmm.