This is a slightly happier post than it was yesterday when I first wrote it

I realized last night that I have been completely neglecting this blog (and my blogger friends).  Work is busy, life is busy, blah blah blah.  We're all busy.  I hate that excuse.

So I was going to take 2 minutes and post this afternoon.  The trouble is, I'm in a sad mood.  On Sunday, I found out that a former coworker -- a lively, vivacious, energetic, laugh-a-minute woman -- is dying of ovarian cancer.  I had seen a pic of her on FB in a hospital bed, but in the weeks since I've seen tons of pics of her looking like I remember.  Foolishly, I thought she was recovering...  until Sunday, when I realized that the recent pics were all being posted by her friends in her honor as she and the Hospice volunteers by her side wait for the inevitable.  She can't be more than 47-48 years old.  It's just not fair.

And then today, I randomly thought of someone from my past that I haven't seen in years.  He was a customer of mine at my high school job in an ice cream parlor (best job ever), and over the years we had run into each other a few times.  He was a really nice man who had endured more than his fair share of hardship.  I googled him... and the first three hits were his obituary from January of this year.  I feel awful that I didn't google him a year ago and maybe get in touch with him one more time.  He was 64.  RIP, Len.

UPDATE:
I thought I had lost a third person, but it turned out that I was mistaken.  (Long story.)  That brings me back to the original point of this blog post.  Growing older definitely has its advantages: more wisdom, less anxiety about what other people think (in fact, I pretty much don't give a crap anymore), more peace and self-awareness. It's not all sunshine and roses, of course.  Growing older also means wrinkles, gray hair, slowing metabolism, potential health issues, and, by far the worst of it all, losing people you love more regularly and frequently.   I can't say I truly loved either of the people I mentioned above -- I didn't know them that well -- but I truly liked both of them and am sorry that their time has been cut short.  There are many others, though, that are gone that I did truly love... and the older I get, the more I realize that this is just the way it's going to be from now on.

That's hard to accept.  It's not so much my mortality that concerns me.  It's my loved ones' mortality.  :(