Pouring mint tea into two glasses, he explained that while he has no regrets about his past, he still wants nothing more than to fall in love and start a family. “At a certain point, one wants it all to stop, and just to settle down and be boring and normal,” he said. “And that’s absolutely who I’ve become now. I will be the happiest person on this planet when I have kids. I do think it’s a bummer to be playing around with your kids in your 50s as opposed to in your 30s, but that’s the way the cookie crumbled.”
Later, in one of several late-night phone calls when Mr. Bowe seemed less guarded, he speculated about his chances of finding love at this point in his life. “I think it’s a very arrogant gamble I made in a way,” he said. “I’ll have time to set up a career that fulfills my spiritual goals and then have time for a relationship afterwards. If I’m right, then I’m the coolest guy in the world. If I’m wrong, I’m a loser.”
Over the years, he admitted, friends have accused him of being afraid of intimacy. “But pretty much all of those friends wanted to be artists or filmmakers or writers, and none of them are,” he said.
“The goal was always to avoid being that surly alcoholic guy who didn’t live up to his dreams and blamed the wife and kids for that,” he added. “So, you make your calculations, you roll the dice and you hope you’re right that there’s time after you make it to then join the human race and have a normal emotional life.”
I made the opposite choice. Knowing that for me marriage and children were more important, I put off my artistic ambitions. Now, with a home, quite enough children, and a wonderful marriage, I will be trying in my 50s to become a successful artist. I'll keep people posted about how it goes.
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