Reflections as Another Year Drifts into the Pile of Memories

2013. Nope, the world didn’t end though many things did. However, it seems bent on self-destruction with a band of gilded age wannabes creating more and more inequity, injustice and war and way too much of the US public is oblivious to the issues, blinded by the incessant propaganda chatter from special interests that seems more likely to end the world than any Mayan prophecies. My Colombia is in political turmoil over oligarchic attempts to set aside the inconvenience of democracy, using purported legal means of course, but the scent of peace still perfumes the air at dawn. I don my Quixote armor more and more, still tilting at windmills and dreaming impossible dreams.

I seem to be aging, finally, although the contrast with my peers remains strong and sad. My physical health was excellent but my emotional health seems as rocky as ever and romantic maturity has yet to arrive. Wonder if that’s what keeps me seemingly so young? The end of a long term, chaotic almost-love-affair stands out; more of a destructive addiction really, without fulfillment but with plenty of related expenses. “No fool like an old fool”, no matter how young he looks, but good riddance (at least that’s what my friends and family say, as does my intellect; I just need to get the rest of me on board).

Other than that it was pretty positive and rather surprising, full of the sound of doors opening on my longest term aspirations, civic, political and academic. I finally became a grandfather and almost immediately thereafter, welcomed a new daughter-in-law into the family, with her own delightful seven year old, so, very quickly, I became a grandfather again: all girls. Edward started working and seems happy. That may be the best of all, … humble though it seems.

I don’t think I came any nearer to finding myself this past year but perhaps I did get to know myself a little better. My writing was not good and my painting and drawing were non-starters but I played a little guitar (or tried to), enough to entertain myself although the guitars still insist I just bother them. Mended some fences in the corral of bygone love affairs but possibly lost a wonderful friend who wanted a much more intimate relationship. This was not really a year for successful romance although someone new and wonderful entered my life and tried to fill that void; unfortunately, scars old and new barred her way.

I notice that I’m less and less in touch with family while at the same time needing family more and more. My fault. I feel the continuing call of the daughter who was never born. I thought I’d received her indirectly but that was a part of the cruelest cut of the year, of the decade really, one still not close to staunched. Still, it beckons my attention to possibilities, even at my incipient third age, of starting over completely with someone new. Then the old adage returns, “… no fool like an old fool”. But, ….

I wonder what next year’s memories will say.
_______

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