The speaker looks back over a life spent doing the expected things at the expected times: playing, laughing, loving, working, crying, sleeping. Each stanza reads like a tidy list of a person doing life correctly. But every one of the first two stanzas ends with a quiet correction. Seeing and listening, the deeper skills, "came later." The speaker could do all the right things without really noticing or hearing the world around them.
The final stanza changes the pattern. The line is "Finding a way to be with her came," and the word "later" has dropped away. That small omission makes the ending feel more immediate, as if being with her isn't something that arrives late but something that simply arrives, and stays. The mood is calm, reflective and a little tender. There's gentle regret about the time it took to learn these things, but also relief and gratitude. The plain, repetitive language makes the final shift feel quietly moving.