Older and Older

It's all happening so fast. All the plans and intentions are getting jumbled up against this razing bulldozer of aging that will shovel them off a cliff. Just as I think I've adjusted to a new level, whump!

This week it is an attack of shingles, on my bottom. All Monday night I didn't sleep, feeling like somebody was applying a hot waffle iron to my butt. The phrase "indignities of age" flowered with revelation. The pain burned, stung, stabbed, and ached. Is this what it feels like to be branded? If I thought I could make this stop, would I rat somebody out? No, but if the torment got worse, I would give a false name.

But back to aging process. My friend Septuagenarian wants to co-author a book about it. Now I feel like that would be an exercise in futility. As the Teacher wrote in what's the name of that Scripture, oh yes, Ecclesiastes, "of the making of books there is no end." In today's newspaper, a conference speaker asked how many in the audience were writing books, and everyone raised their hand! All that energy went into getting on airplanes and getting the name tags and putting up the hands!

In olderness,I feel noticeably less likely to expend energy. But someday, Septuagenarian and I will collect our random musings. Even if futile, at least it's exercise.