<strong>She’s complaining of wrinkles. He says his limp is getting worse. Most of my friends seem to be getting old. How did that happen?</strong>

<strong>Friends I hang out with; buddies from High School; contemporaries and work peers: they all seem to be getting old. Not just older, but old! Wrinkled skin, wobbly knees, some with bellies that move their centers of gravity well forward of earlier decades.</strong>

<strong>White hair. Gray hair. Dyed hair. No hair. They are definitely looking different. Sedentary lifestyles, comfortable chairs in front of a big-screen TV. They are definitely acting different. Has the Age of Aquarius not only passed us by, but left no trace?</strong>

<strong>I remember when we stayed up well after midnight, dancing into the wee hours, drinking like Cossacks. The drugs we used were not pain killers or blood thinners or erectile enhancers — good heavens, no! We were purists and used drugs for higher purposes — generally recreational or experimental ones.</strong>

<strong>Now my friends complain of aches and limitations, of waning desires and setting dreamscapes. Nests are empty, child-rearing has yielded to baby-sitting the grandkids. Attempts at the Great Novel have morphed into runs at a readable Memoir.</strong>

<strong>What the #@%*&amp;! happened? I just took some time to raise a family, make a career, or two, or three, and fail at an attempt to build a retirement account. Maybe having to return to trades I left after graduate school has kept me younger, or confused me into thinking I am. Maybe I must rightfully concede that I’m getting old-er. But surely, not old.</strong>

<strong>Not “old” like creaky, like bent or slow or crotchety. Not “old” like set-in-my-ways, or pursuing comfort over adventure. But I have to say, I’m beginning to notice those traits in my peer group. Should I send them all to counseling? Should I hang out with a more youthful crowd? Certainly I’m not ready to be old. The chronology must be warped: one of those time-gravity-relativity things. Can’t be me. Well, maybe my hair is getting a bit thin, and okay: a bit gray. But my inner self is still frolicking in the open meadows of “back to the land!”</strong>

<strong>But what am I going to do about my friends?</strong>