Halloween night was pretty here. Lots of leaves fell from the trees so the ground was coated with orange, yellow, and red. I loved the rainy Halloween nights like that when I was a kid. You could hear the leaves smooshing as you walked through them.

Yesterday was a stressy day. My coffee slipped off my desk and all over myself and everything else. It was a particularly GOOD coffee day and the mug was full. I was looking forward to coffee and writing. For whatever reason losing the coffee just flipped my day. I even cried a bit. I'm a bit worried I'm just getting old and upset about little stuff too easily. I wouldn't mind getting old so much if I could keep the parts of me that I actually like, as they are.

Sometimes when I'm upset and feeling kind of lost and hopeless the song, Mona With the Children, by Douglas Cameron, comes into my head and gets stuck there.

On social media I wrote:

OK. So you hate Israel, hate Palestine, hate Iran, HATE HATE HATE. They are all just people. Who are you really hating? Mona with the Children - Never forget Doug Cameron's song and the real young woman who was murdered for the hatred of others.

I don't know what it says about me that this is where my mind goes. Is my brain just telling me to stop hating myself? Only my brain knows. Do you remember the song? Hard to believe (for me) that its already 40 years ago since that song came out.

I feel that people these days are on constant Witch hunts. As if there is some great prize for rooting out anyone who does not strictly and completely adhere to the public's expectations/ demands. Its like walking/ talking around in a big trap with a hair trigger. Why do they want to live this way?

Part of getting old seems to be seeing the things you love become extinct. Tea cups and saucers, clocks, books, hand sewing and embroidery, hand written letters, postcards, birthday cards, silver sets, so many things disappearing or becoming unwanted by the younger generations as they come along with new technology.

But, I notice the old things I love still last longer than the new things coming along. Maybe not in purpose but in strength and durability. New technology is made to break and be replaced. Can it be loved like the old things when it isn't made to last? I don't think there is enough time before a new one is needed and the old hits the landfill.

As a baby and a child you begin to demand your dignity, to find and expect to feel like a person. But, as you grow older, farther from childhood, you begin to lose your dignity. You become dependent, your body and mind forget and have to give in to necessity over dignity. Against your will.

Listening to people, family, and the media go on about your life and health as you get older, some days it feels like living with a jack-in-the-box. Any time it could pop up and that's it your time is up. I'm going to be 60 at the end of this year. I do wonder how many days I still have. I don't feel stressed about it but, I don't like it.

I wonder if there have been people who also didn't like the unknown date lurking in their future. Has anyone ever decided they didn't like the suspense and chosen their own expiry date? Not due to despair, or ill health. Just because you don't want to leave it random and unknown.

I don't think its suicide. It's not a decision made due to sadness, or ill health. I don't think its morbid either. Younger people may see it that way. Your experience is different. But, unless immortality becomes an option, I think its entirely reasonable.

Compare it to doctors deciding a birth date for babies by scheduling a caesarian for women. They don't know what the real birth date would have been, if the baby had been left in the womb until it made its own way, in its own time. I think choosing your own death date would be the same really.

You could have all your affairs in order, make sure your will is done right, write instructions for your funeral, burial, or whatever you want done with your leftover body. Decide where your possessions go, are distributed, knowing there isn't much of anything you can take with you. Spend that extra time with family and friends you've kept meaning to visit but didn't make time for. If you are a bucket list person, finish your list. Find a good spot and plant a tree! Otherwise, do those things you'd like to have done, travel to those places you would have liked to see, knowing your plan for how many days you've decided you have left.

In the end, you might choose to extend the date. There would be not reason you couldn't. That alone would be a good reason not to tell anyone else about what you're doing and the cut off date. Who wants someone reminding you about it. You might change your mind entirely. But, if you wanted to stick to your date and not keep waiting for it to come along and happen to you - why shouldn't a person take their own fate in their own hands and choose their last day for themselves?

It takes bravery to get old. Young people won't know, or may scoff at the idea, until they get here too. If they get here, not everyone is fortunate enough to get old.

Getting old means dealing with your health in new and innovative ways. You take pills and don't really know what to expect from them. You go for tests and don't know what they're going to do to you. You trust people, professionals, who were in diapers and learning how to drink from a cup just a short time ago.

Getting old itself. Knowing things aren't what they used to be. Knowing other people, younger people, look at you and see an old woman. They don't see the person you are. Every old face is a resting bitch face.

You measure things differently, especially time. More of your decisions are about time than quality or quantity.

It takes bravery to look at yourself in a mirror and see yourself, still there. To find yourself, as they said long, long ago.