At Forty

“Can I tell you something stupid?” Dario said. “I've been thinking about quitting.”

Ines put down her coffee. “Quitting? You've been an engineer for, what, eighteen years?”

“Nineteen. That's sort of the problem.” He turned his cup slowly. “I've done the same thing since I was twenty-one. I've never tried anything else.”

“So what would you do instead?”

“That's the thing. I don't know. I've thought about teaching. I qualified to teach, years ago, and never used it.”

Ines nodded slowly. “You should think hard about it. At forty, changing your whole profession isn't nothing.”

“I know. Everyone says I should be grateful. Good job, they hire people like me easily, I could retire well.” He paused. “But grateful isn't the same as happy, is it?”

“No,” Ines said. “It isn't.” She looked out at the street for a while. “I've thought about it too, you know. Different reasons. Same feeling.”

“And?”

“And I haven't done anything about it. That's my honest answer.”

Dario laughed quietly. “That's not very helpful.”

“I know. I don't think there's a helpful answer.” She finished her coffee. “Maybe you change, maybe you don't. But you should at least find out what the opportunity costs — before you decide it's too late to take it.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Dario picked up the menu, and they went back to ordering lunch, the question still sitting there between them, unanswered.