Last week, in one of my morose moods, I remembered the final lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Lament: Life must go on; I forget just why.

In college, wallowing in beatnik angst, I would often mutter that line, attempting to look world worn and profound at age 19. I also spent a lot of hours trying to write a line of my own as bleak as that one. I never succeeded, probably because at age 19 I didn’t really know what Edna was talking about.

The poem is in the voice of a woman who is telling her two young children about the death of their father. Almost all of the poem has to do with linking the father to the children (From his old coats/I’ll make you little jackets;/I’ll make you little trousers/from his old pants.) Only in the last two lines does her reflection turn inward: Life must go on; I forget just why.

For most of my life I was busy being a husband, father, employee, employer, and getting the next thing done, the next bill paid, or the next child carted to wherever that child needed to be. Purpose wasn’t a question in my life.

However, when I got old and the children were grown, and working for a living was an option, I began to understand. Purpose gives you a reason to know why life must go on. (It’s ironic that the two poems that seem to deal with this subject best were both written when the poets were in their twenties: Lament and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The fact that they understood so young what it took me so long to comprehend is probably a measure of the difference between really smart people and me.)

The other thing that occurred to me, though, is that purpose is a choice. Nobody says that when you’re old and have done all the things expected of you in raising a family and earning a living, you can’t choose new things to pursue and be passionate about.

The same thing is probably true about the shared purpose that keeps couples heading in the same direction. Years ago I knew a couple who worked very long hours building a business. They worked so hard that it was the subject of some conversation and occasional admiration. After years of this the business became successful. Shortly after that, the couple divorced. There was a collective shaking of heads; why, after all that work, couldn’t they simply enjoy their success together.

I don’t really know why, but my guess is that what they shared was the purpose and the struggle. When it was done, they didn’t have a lot to hold them together.

If that’s true, it was still a matter of choice. If the purpose has been achieved, find a new purpose.

There are some things about growing old that militate against pursuing new purposes. When you’re young, all things are possible. When you’re old, you’ve encountered enough grim reality to know that only some things, probably only a few, are possible. Then there’s the feeling that you’ve been there, done that, and it made you tired. You just don’t feel like getting that tired again. And there’s my personal favorite: what’s the use? Given the fact that you have so much more past than you have future, it’s not worth worrying about.

But those are all just excuses, born of weariness, fear, or indecision. And that’s the conclusion I came to. They’re all excuses, and it’s not so much a matter of dying with our boots on as it is making sure that our last step is actually going somewhere.

So I’ll trade in Edna’s lines for some from one of my least favorite poets, William Ernest Henley. Not nearly so good in terms of literature, but probably better to wake up with in the morning:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.