230101 The New Year

As of 5 hours ago it is a new year. It’s funny, but I don’t feel any older this year than I did last year. I wonder if I’ll make it through this year? I wondered if I would last through the previous year and I did, but at my age the clock is ticking down towards zero. If this was a baseball game, would I be in the 8th or 9th inning? If it is the 9th, is it the bottom of the inning? Am I at bat? How many strikes do I have, 1 or 2? Will I get a hit and continue to run the bases or take a swing and miss the ball? If so, then it’s strike 3, game over.

I have given thought to some new year’s resolutions, as I have in the past. I could quit smoking, quit drinking my beer, quit drinking coffee, all of which I engage in every day. I enjoy all of them. One might say, all too often, but that one would be wrong as I see it. My pleasures in life have diminished through the years. The older I get the fewer pleasures remain for me in my life. I no longer gamble, no longer dabble in the stock market, no longer enjoy driving, being with large groups of people, no longer enjoy traveling, no longer work, but the greatest pleasure of all is gone, that being making love with the woman I loved and was with for 58 years.

My life is like that of a monk, living in a monastery. What I have left these days are my beer, coffee and cigarettes for my pleasures. Those are pleasures monks do not have. I do have some true friends. A philosopher once said, “A man who dies with true friends, dies a wealthy man.”