Playing for Time

***

As usual, fickle spring can’t make up her mind, and she will have it her way regardless. It looks perfectly lovely outside but when I opened the balcony door after sunrise, I was instantly made aware of the real-feel temp. Doesn’t matter, it’s just weather and we haven’t a particle of power to change it day to day, which would be easier to take if we had even a smidgen of influence on the rest of life. It’s part of my job to warn you that the aging process inevitably brings loss in most every direction, and far sooner than we’re led to believe: loss of influence, loss of credibility, of independence, of energy, strength, and power, among other attributes we formerly took for granted. Sooner than we could possibly anticipate, we start to sense that we’re next-in-line for increased outside input concerning our well-being and security. Lord, I was just there with six older family members! Facts say it’s been more than twenty years since I played the caregiver role, but in my economy it was only yesterday… and although we’re not there yet, I can feel it creeping up to scope us out. Oh, the places we’ll go, the realizations we’ll make along the way. Life is… weird. And a little anticlimactic. Is this all there is? Send in the clowns…

In retrospect, 2022 was a daunting challenge every day, and 2023 isn’t proving to be very inventive on its own because it’s more of the same. A person could worry.

Nevertheless, we press on…

I know this much is true:

1. We’re all pedaling as fast as we can.
2. As soon as we know better, we try to do better.

My old-lady gripe is that life moves a pinch too fast from womb to tomb. It never slows for us, and by the time we figure a couple of things out we’re, as my grandma said, “too soon old, too late shmart.” Pisses me off, that sense of powerlessness. But as a Teutonic realist, I see the dilemma for what it is… life’s current and coming challenge is to hang in and get better because the alternative creates even more righteous rage within. And silent rage is treacherous because it’s a gateway drug to depression, which is the opposite of living. We don’t wanna go there.