Time in a bottle

I happened to be listening to Jim Croce’s original [Time In A Bottle] recently. It was on the occasion of the passing of a friend. Perhaps you will give me a few moments about it.

I have been having a hard time interacting with life lately. It has never felt so bewildering for me. (I’m 51 for those who would like to know — I don’t know if it matters.)

My friend had life figured out, though. She was 88 but still, in one of those years she had to have done it. I was struggling today trying to figure out how. When? She talked about “still feeling like an 18 year old” so often I never thought to ask her if that feeling had ever passed her along the way and then somehow came back again. It just didn’t seem like it could have, I guess. I haven’t felt 20 since I was 20, not 28 since I was 28, and not 38 since I was 38. The trend definitely seems to be getting worse.

Diana Dudley passed away peacefully in her sleep, hardly a whiff of bad health start to finish for at least what I knew of it. Recently stopped running 5k’s when she passed out trying to sprint across the finish line and ended up breaking one of her front teeth in the process if you can believe it.

Did a marathon the last year I did one if memory serves. 2015 seems a long way off but is it really? Do I not even see my life passing by anymore?

She had only one recipe, How to Live Life. I should probably have pestered her to do a WikiHow on it or something. She’d come down and watch The Amazing Race with me for the vicarious…