Aging

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made.
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!"

--Robert Browning

I love those lines from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" but when I quote them to my wife, she gives me a little attitude. We both know that getting old is a bummer in many ways. When we get together with other people around our age we invariably turn our conversation to what we call "the organ recital." Aches and pains dominate so many hours of our lives.

Now there are some strange advantages. When we find ourselves watching a crime drama and realize that we have seen it before, we go ahead and enjoy it a second (third?) time because we can't remember who done it.

When I am sent on an errand to find something in the next room I've learned to say, "I didn't see it." I used to say, "It's not there." but more and more it is the former statement that is true rather than the latter.

Of course when my wife sends me to look in her purse I have to say, "Can you be more specific?" (See my blog post on "The Black Hole".) But that is another problem.

Dr. Joe Garrisi used to say, "I've been thinking a lot more about the hereafter these days. Why just the other day I walked into the kitchen and then said 'Now what am I here after?'"