100 years old

my grandfather--well, one of them--lived to be 98 years old.

nearly every day i saw him the last handful of years of his life--you know, the five plus years he was on hospice. and oxygen. he would say to me

"growing old ain't for sissies."

well shoot.

i'm just a bit over halfway there and i'm already hurting, so i just don't know about that.

i'd like to think that as long as i keep moving--even if s-l-o-w-l-y--i'll be ok.

but i just don't know.

sometimes i want to live a long time and visit all the places and see and do all the things and love all the people and watch all the babies be born and grow and do things and become who they are and get married and have their own babies.

some days i worries this is a hard cruel world and i don't know that i can lose anyone else or watch any more people i love suffer any more and i want to be done sooner rather than later.

i just don't know.

sometimes i have hope we will clean up our acts and our air and learn to work together to make the world a better place and that good will prevail not just in the next life, but in the hear and now.

sometimes i can't wait for it to be the next life because i don't know if i can watch things keep getting worse.

war and apocalypse and dystopia are so much better left in the imagination lost in a good book.

but at least a part of me wants to grow into an old eccentric woman who can get away with wearing and saying whatever she likes, as long as she is kind. can still read and quilt and walk.

and can sleep at night.