Aging Into The Good Stuff

What I miss most about aging, frankly, is talking on the phone to someone in synch. We never have a lot of them, but we all have a few. I have two left. One in Oregon. One in East Texas.

I can, when we have time, talk an hour with these two friends about anything from gun control and global warming to the name of the bigger than usual blue and grey blue jay thant just drank out of my new birdbath.

Actually, we don't talk gun control. All three of us have three different opinions and believe their are more. We prefer friendship to all these ideas.

Funny, but as I age, I don't talk relationships because I have lost two damn many to age and illness. My two friends have, too. I'be been single forever. They have been married forever. None of us needs to discuss that.

One, though, loves music and ballet as much as I do. The other one and I share wild and domestic flora.

I know women are supposed to natter on about our families. The two of us with grandchildren do share their activities. Not the parents. The kids. We both know we get to play strongly with The Grandkids. More sedately with The Children.

I used to have a number of friends close by. Some have moved, some have died, some have disconnected. I am developing new friendships as we speak, but none with the plants, the art, the music, the essays, the books, the same values. Right now, those are just two friends I talk to.

It isn't lonesome yet, but it looms. I don't want chitchat. I want meaningful conversation. Ideally, conversation than can be discussed, disected and marveled at with a third person.

My ears are still fairly good. What I dread is a time when the interesting conversation fades, and fades, and fades.

I am years from that. Not so many now.

Funny. I guess for some it can be a time of peace and letting go.

For me and others like me, it is the time to learn more, do more, work harder than ever.
I don't want my aging to be a sump tank but a think time. Damn. Less energy, more need.
Aging is a fact. Living is a choice, at least, living well. I've learned some stuff.

Might as well keep talking and writing.

I never want a future with (shudder0 BINGO. I know I am a snob.

We have to draw the line SOMEwhere.