The coming twilight

So, this is how it's going to be.

I've just turned a corner, mentally, coming to acknowledge just how old I am. People who I seemed to chum around with of late, people I'd come to consider my peers...are retiring. Today it hit me hard, as one of my "besties" told me the road had been long but it was now forking. This leaves me in the dust.

And we all turn to dust.

That's what is becoming more and more obvious to me. I've had something of a delayed maturation, since I did not marry (for good) until late, did not have kids until only 7 years ago. On Facebook, I see that most of my old cronies from high school are old cronies and worse--grandparents.

So my buddies are retiring grandparents.

I look at their pictures and I see "mature" people. This has been instructive, for in the same way we cannot often discern the changes in our own kids/environment because we are always there, our brains only mapping general detail (unless we're physically threatened or have some other need to be more attentive)--in that same, oblivious way, I've ignored my own maturation, my own sagging and wrinkling and plumping.

I guess I thought I could cope well-enough with getting old, myself. I'd just never had to embrace the fact that those around me would be checking out, too. It's starting to get lonely here. I feel the cold chill of the nursing home, already.

I'll tell you one thing--I'm going to start doing the math on my KPERS (retirement fund) to see just how close I, myself, might be to clocking out. Hmmmm.