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.

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.

Is there something about getting older that I find myself looking for shortcuts. To make things simpler, less complicated and less trouble. Or, is it the loss of confidence, maybe bravado, from being older. I can remember being reckless (I've tended to caution, not a big dare devil all my life) enough to open my computer and fix it myself, things like that, in my younger years. Was it confidence or trust or that feeling of invulnerability that people say young people have. I don't know. These days, I look for shortcuts.

Maybe its the idea or feeling that I just don't have as much time. I'm 59 now. Since December. Turning 50 was a big deal for me. Now 60 is coming around the corner, assuming I get there, and I don't feel too bad about it. Still seems an odd surprise, even though I can count past 60 even as far as being mathematically correct. The surprise is finding myself this old. I wasn't born this way. I used to be much younger and I looked different too.

Younger people look at me and assume I've always looked this way. I can remember thinking the same, even though it isn't logical, about people when I was younger. Look at old photographs and you imagine everyone living in black and white with (mostly) dour expressions. It's hard to think of them as real people in colour. But, real life has always been in colour. Its only technology that couldn't show it that way, at the time. We rely too much on technology, far too much as time goes on.

Anyway, shortcuts, to stay on topic. The more time I spend looking for shortcuts the more I think about the time I've wasted looking for shortcuts that I usually end up rejecting and I could have been actually making real progress, without shortcuts. (There's a good run on sentence for you, and I'm not changing it).