At 93 – That’s Old

Self reflection comes easy now. I sense that my view of life around me has changed in the last year or so. I’m still interested in what’s going on in the world, I listen to the news. I read the Washington Post every day. Family includes me in activities. But I don’t seem to be involved as much in what goes on. I’m not really making the decisions of the day. They are increasingly being made for me. There’s no good or bad, right or wrong about this. It’s just different.

Facebook is another world to me. Texting and messaging are too immediate for me to respond. I need time to reflect. Tweeting makes it too easy to blurt out thoughts without thinking. Phones aren’t just telephones any more. I can’t type with my thumbs. Many kids can’t read cursive writing today. It’s just that much of the cultural world around me is different from what I spent most of my life in. I am fascinated to watch it, but I’m no longer so involved in it.

I find myself as an interested observer, looking out at everything going on around me , and not always being a part of it. But I am still an integral part of the world. I have come to feel my strong connection to life – all life – all around me. I am not alone. I am comfortable using the word God to describe both the mystery and the reality of this awesome universe with its incredible distances and equally incredible minuteness. And I am a specific and integral part of that universe, for God is an integral part of my very being.

So I am 93.   I am and have been privileged in so many ways.  I am grateful for all the abounding love that surrounds me and still gives my life meaning as well as its zest and deep contentment.

Loren Bullock
October 17, 2017