"I have lived long enough: my way of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf..." (Macbeth)-

If a blog is a venue for recording daily, minor, significant, and important events in a blogger's life...and if it's also a place to express feelings and emotions, then I confess that I feel "cabin'd, cribb'd, confined." And to continue with the Macbeth thing, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace...." In the past, when I awakened in the mornings, I went to work. I could hardly call it work to be surrounded by hundreds of teenagers; and to think I used to get paid for having fun all day. And I do mean, "all day", because after the classrooms closed, I went down to the field to coach the soccer team in the fall, and the track teams in the winter and the spring until about 5pm. Going home, I had more fun with my four teenagers and their mother. Even after their mother split, I used to run the 10 miles to get home...and that was euphoric. After I came down to Florida with Rhoda, she went to work as a receptionist for a doctor or as a salesperson in a shop with products for the handicapped, while I usually was off to the golf course with my buddies, or to the weight room to pump iron or to the pool to swim a mile of laps--80 laps actually. But what about these days? I've lost my mobility among other things. Golf is a lost cause--even if I could play without pain, the buddies are all gone. My life is becoming a big yawn. Once upon decades ago, I had goals which seemed unattainable and what were they? First, to engage in combat in WWII which came along just as I graduated from high school. The plan was to avenge the affliction my father suffered from being gassed in WWI. My other goals were to get into college, graduate, and get a PhD in English education; marry, raise a family, and have a teaching and coaching career; run the New York Marathon; take a year to travel around the world; break 80 on the golf course; perform in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, play Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof", and write a book. Now, when I look back at all these goals, I wonder how the hell I managed to do all that.

I survived WWII (barely & hardly) but now I am trying to survive aging. My pill box is loaded every day. I have doctors to tend to every part of my body--outside and inside-- and two to tend to my brain. This is not fun. And now that I've finished pining and whining, I'm off to lunch and await the arrival of Pat, the physical therapist. And tomorrow is Saturday.