Aging Up

One of the most startling aspects of achieving the profound amount of years I’ve acquired is the realization that the revered seniors of my early life were in the same boat. I find myself as an official senior citizen, at least according to the IRS, and yet I have a lot of the same thoughts, desires, and concerns as a much younger version of myself. The astonishing piece is that I never imagined someone with my gray hair and well-lined face would still harbor the feelings which I thought were the sole purview of the young.

Of course, it could be that I have failed to grow up, an opinion shared occasionally by a certain wife of mine. Maybe my peer seniors are out there thinking deep thoughts solving the weighty problems of the world while I’m stuck in some desperate hold on my youth. Then again, my conversations with those peers lead me to understand we’re all in the same boat. We all woke up at different points to discover we’re not as young as we self-imagined. I keep waiting for the onset of wisdom that is supposed to come with all these years but maybe that is not bequeathed to all. Experience, which I have an overabundance of in certain areas, does provide a perspective that younger version of myself would have certainly benefitted from. There were certain life changing decisions I would definitely address differently. Life is weird, something I figured out a long time ago; but I still find is extremely bizarre to think my grandparents thought like I do.

We finally caught a “break” from the very cold weather that my Favorite Panamanian has been luxuriating in during her Covid enforced first winter in a while. The temperatures rose enough that we didn’t get the 12 inches of snow that could have come and instead nearly a half inch of ice fell. I opened the garage door this morning to take out the rubbish and the driveway looked very wet. It wasn’t. I dropped a mall clump of snow onto it which skittered across the glare ice all the way to the street. The temperatures are supposed to rise into the 40s this afternoon so we should get the first melt in a while. Ahh, New England.

Driveway This Morning

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RECURRING CHARACTERS                                            

BR3 – granddaughter #3, BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter, ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete = my daughter in law; Wingman – my son in law; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Soxfather - my brother in law; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd musquetera (musketeer); Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member, Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during her single days in Brooklyn