Old

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man. ~Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein), Diary in Exile, 1935

Tonight I went out with the remnants of our supper club. We've lost quite a few members to moving away for school or work and babies.

As I was paying for my food, I became acutely aware of how much older I am than most of the others in that group. The cashier offered them tickets about a college promotion, but I must look "too mature" for that now. As we talked, one of our group is headed for college, and conversation turned to tales of dorm days long past.

It struck me how on the brink of all those crazy memory-building experiences he is and how far past them I am now. I could feel every one of the gray hairs on the top of my head as though they had transmuted to stainless steel threads.

I am approaching 30 at light speed. I have never been too worried about my age. It's just a number, after all, and I've been blessed with a lot of wonderful things and people and it's all been crammed into these 29 short years. I can't complain.

It's just that lately, ever since I got home from Japan, I have felt things slowing down. I wonder if maybe they're supposed to.

I miss going to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night because my roommate and I needed a break from school. I miss sitting on the porch at the Wesley and talking to my friends, speaking with passion about everything and nothing. I miss getting together to do things.

I know life changes, and maybe, just maybe someday my life will change in this way, too, but right now, I hate these changes. Everyone I know, all the friends I used to have have been consumed by family and work and we never see each other. We never do anything. I guess everybody has broken off into self-contained units, and I don't have a unit of my own.

Maybe that's the problem. I just feel like the transmission on my life has been thrown into neutral and I don't know how to get it back in gear. I worry that I'm going to turn into the stereotypical "old maid" school teacher living alone except for cats. I'm almost there already. I haven't met anybody in a LONG time who interested me at all. Why is that? Why can't I do all my other friends did years ago and find somebody to spend my life with?

Age has snuck up on me. I don't mind the wrinkles (only a few...thank God and genetics for good bones), the aches in my hands and knees, or the gray streaks. However, I really, really do mind the being alone. That's the one thing that growing older hasn't taught me how to deal with gracefully.