I think you're beautiful. :)

Getting old definitely sucks.

You have more hair than I though. So that's a plus!

I don't have a protruding belly. My decrepitude is the opposite: people I hadn't seen for a while remarked upon how thin I was. The only reason they didn't say "emaciated" is that we were speaking Dutch.

.....

Platitudes don't change reality.

Are you calling Dutch a language for platitudes!?!
I may have to fight you.
I'll throw all of my, emaciated, 6'6'' hight in it!
Or, being middle aged, I may reconsider and ask you on another occasion when I have a cooler head what you meant.

height
(english diphtongs are weird)

Yeah, I had my hair cut the other day and, going straight from work, with no make-up on, tired from a 6am start and a horribly busy day, I looked like a corpse under the bright white salon lights.

I have distinct 'marionette lines' running from my mouth, which makes me look like a miserable old bat, even though they've resulted from smiling and laughing. But I can't go through life with a rictus grin, so instead I have perpetual resting bitch face.

Sometimes my head hurts and sometimes my stomach hurts
And I guess it won't be long
'Fore I'm sitting in a room with a bunch
Of people whose necks and backs are aching

One of my best friends died recently, at 69. She had stage 4 cancer, but refused to go to the doctor at all until she couldn't walk more than 3 feet.

She was also a hoarder. Some other friends and I have spent the last 2 months cleaning out her apartment. Luckily, it was a paper hoard (she was an academic), and not a garbage hoard. But still challenging; the first night, I twisted my ankle trying to get to the only lamp in the room (ironic, since there were at least 20 desk lamps elsewhere in the small apartment).

She was mostly organized about the hoard. All of the books about colonial history, over here. All of the books about medieval history, over there. All file folders marked. She even divided her colonial history books into sections: Salem, Boston, Cambridge.

Such love and careful thought put into a book collection. And none of it matters now. We swept the books from the shelves into one big pile and gave them away. All her papers, her slideshow presentations about various local histories, recycled. (The things we were able to donate to institutions that wanted them fit into one box.) She edited a newsletter, proudly; a million copies, all recycled.

None of it matters now. She's dead. We'll all be dead soon enough.

"Such love and careful thought put into a book collection. And none of it matters now."

I know what you mean. You're such a good friend for caring about the sadness of that. For taking care of her stuff.

I feel that sometimes about my parents who just died. And about myself. About my books for instance. I carefully sought them out across decades. Feeling that I built up such a tasteful, curated selection of the best of more than a century of literature. Vaguely thinking that f.i. my daughter will excitedly put it in her own bookcases. Etc.
Of course that won't happen. Second hand books are not worth much. Probably she won't care that much about my beloved writers.
Probably a few people will pick out some books they like. A 2nd hand book seller will offer, say, 200 euros for a part of them. And the rest will be recycled.
So does that mean what I do is pointless? From a wider point of view across the generations it probably is. But surely the happiness I had building this up, bringing a new prized find back home meant a lot to _me_.

So Melismata, your friend loved building this library, organizing the books, writing the newsletters.
That love and pleasure in the moment is what matters. Not the material things that were the means.
Her life wasn't pointless. The joy she had was the point.

I hope you can see it like that.
But it's hard. Damned hard.

I just (almost) finished clearing out my mom's house. She is now in a facility and seldom recognizes me.

She saved so much stuff that I never knew about. Everything from my childhood; from schoolwork to every dance costume. She saved it all because it meant something; yet she never shared that with me. We never went through those things and reminisced. I never knew how much I meant to her because she never said it or shared it. It's all recycled or trashed or donated now because I live in a tiny place.

I will never know how she felt about being my mom. Was she proud of me, or disappointed because I wasn't about curls and dresses and parties.

Every time I visit her I think about what we didn't know about each other. How much we lost by not really talking.

So, I remind everyone that it doesn't matter about your stuff or getting older. What matters in the end is living a full life and connecting with interests and people you care about.

Well this took a turn.

I have been thinking a lot about what a life means. It will be a year since my wife died on the 26th.

About 12 years ago a guy who made a bunch of money in trucking and warehousing was very upset because the city would not sell him some land. He wanted to buy a golf course and buy a tract next to it for an expansion. The city would not sell the land as it is set aside as a natural area to help control flooding.

A lawyer for the guy explained that it was unfair as the man was getting old and as a man ages he wants to leave a legacy. It seems making good money and raising kids and getting them set off on a good path isn't enough. So, a golf course?

It just seemed kind of sad to me. As for me I long ago decided that when I die if a few people say of me 'well, he wasn't an asshole' that will be enough.

As for the right now I have the remnants of Rosemary's life, parts of her dad's and mom's lives and her younger brother's things. I have more of her family's stuff than I do my own. Most of my life pre 1997 burned in a fire. Thankfully I had generations of family photos and all of my photos in another place so they are with me.

I have many things to sort through and I am making shadows boxes for her nieces and nephews but it is slow going. I am having executive function issues. The more important something is the harder time I have actually doing something.

So I have been thinking a lot about what we do and what we keep and what it ultimately means. As you guys said above, joy and connection are the only real bit that matter.

I do have no idea what I want to do with whatever is left of my time. I have done so many jobs and been to school many times and lived in many places and traveled a lot. I am not a settled and stable person by nature is what I am saying. Other than being a dad I have not had any experiences in life that have lasted as long as my marriage to Rosemary. It was more than 20 years of being calm and being connected to something and someone. Can I reinvent myself again or am I just too old for that?

Whatever, it will involve cats. It is Friday night so before siting down to write this I wound the clocks. Casper, Nora, and Possum, all followed me and watched intently as I took the keys and wound the mechanisms. I don't know why but they always need to watch me wind the clocks. Soon I will go out to say goodnight to Ginger. 50 years from now that will mean nothing to anybody but right now it is something shared and we all seem to benefit from it.

Jon, as for how you look. I think you will be OK. You have other things to do and experience with a good person who loves you.

I forgot to say I love you guys. You can never say that too often.

Awww arse_hat, sending love to you and all the others here.

I love you all too. I feel so sad tonight.

jouke, thank you so much for your kind words. Such a great perspective, and I need to remember it more. "The joy was the point."

Hugs to all!!