"Pretty good! How are your feet?"

This bit of text conversation is fairly typical of the discussions I have with my friends these days. It seems that, in a variety of ways, we're all falling apart. This particular response was to a friend who had asked about my veins (how they're healing after the ablasion). When I spoke with my best friend earlier this week for the first time in months, we shared our diagonses and treatments for at least a fourth of the time we talked. I guess this is just what it's like to age, and the best thing we can do is laugh about it. I'm glad I have friends who can laugh too. Pouting and complaining isn't going to do anything except drive people away, and dwelling constantly on all of our "old-people" problems only makes them worse. Sometimes when I mention some aging complaint, one of my kids will tell me he's going to get me a Life Alert. Yeah, they're little smart asses, but I always laugh. When my granddaughter points out some less-than-attractive aspect of my aging (which she never does with malice, only with wonder) I tell her to watch out because some day the same things will happen to her. As a result -- of my words or simply of her maturity -- she has mostly stopped pointing out these things.

While I -- and, I'm sure, others -- would prefer not to have the aches and pains, the flab and the wrinkles, overall I don't care. I have people I love who love me and who are only a phone call away. I have friends who died young and never had the chance to get old and experience aging. As my mother always said, aging is better than the alternative. Still, I know someday the time will come when I can do less; it's all the reason I need to do more while I can.