I started online dating in my 50s after two divorces. Trust me

In the twilight of middle life, when many hearts grow weary and some dreams fade into silence, Coleen Nolan spoke with the warmth and courage of one who has walked through both joy and heartbreak: “I started online dating in my 50s after two divorces. Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can.” Beneath these simple words lies not merely a tale of love’s persistence, but a hymn to the resilience of the human spirit. It is a declaration that the heart, no matter how often it has been broken, still remembers how to hope — that the soul, even when bruised by loss, is never too old to rise and reach for connection once more.

Nolan’s story is not one of naïve optimism, but of bravery born from pain. Twice she had tasted the bitterness of endings — the dissolution of vows once made in faith, the quiet ache of solitude after shared laughter fades. Yet she refused to surrender to cynicism or fear. Instead, she chose to step again into the unpredictable realm of love, through the unfamiliar world of online dating, a modern marketplace of hearts that both entices and terrifies. In doing so, she became a symbol of renewal — proof that courage does not belong to the young alone, and that beginnings are not confined to the first chapters of life.

To say, “If I can do it, anyone can,” is to extend a hand across the divide of doubt. It is a message to every soul who believes their time for love has passed, who fears rejection or ridicule, who feels too old, too scarred, too uncertain. Nolan’s words carry the wisdom of one who knows that fear is the true enemy, not failure. For love is not reserved for the unbroken — it is the medicine of the broken, the quiet force that makes the wounded whole again. The path of love does not promise safety, but it always offers meaning.

The ancients, too, spoke of such rebirth. Consider Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, who, after the betrayal and collapse of her first marriage, refused to retreat into bitterness. Instead, she embraced life anew — ruling with power, seeking companionship, and daring to love again, even in the face of judgment. Like Nolan, she understood that life does not end with loss; it changes shape. Both women remind us that to live is to begin again, that love’s embers, though dimmed, can always be rekindled.

Dating in later life, especially after failure, is not merely an act of romance — it is an act of defiance. It defies shame, loneliness, and the quiet whisper that says, “You are done.” Nolan’s courage is not in finding love, but in seeking it. It is in logging on, in trying again, in believing that laughter and tenderness still wait somewhere beyond the horizon. This is the ancient virtue of hope reborn — the same fire that carried sailors into unknown seas and poets into unwritten verses.

And so, the heart of her message is this: it is never too late to begin again. Love, like spring, does not ask how long winter lasted; it simply arrives. The human heart is not measured by its age but by its capacity to stay open. Nolan’s journey teaches that we must not let fear of the past close the door to the future. The courage to love again is the highest form of wisdom, for it means we have chosen faith over fear, light over shadow, and growth over stagnation.

Take this as your teaching: when life offers you a new beginning, do not shrink back in disbelief. Whether you are twenty or seventy, divorced or never married, heartbroken or healing — dare to step forward. You are not defined by what has ended, but by your willingness to begin. If Coleen Nolan, with her years, her scars, and her laughter, could enter the strange new world of online love with hope in her heart, then so can you.

And thus, let her words be both challenge and comfort: “If I can do it, anyone can.” For what she truly means is this — that the power to start again lives not in luck or youth, but in the undying flame of the human heart. Nurture that flame, feed it with courage, and let it light your path toward love, toward life, and toward the infinite possibility of beginning anew.