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2002-01-20 - 8:19 a.m.

EMOTIONAL OLD AGE

Last night made me feel old. I�m only in my forties, which makes me middle-aged and not old, but last night felt old. It was more a matter of harbingers than of actualities but feelings often deal in harbingers more than actualities. Old was emotional truth, at least for a bit, if not objective truth.

Once a year, Mr. Philately and I dress up and go to a fancy fund-raising dinner. Tradition dictates that we meet up with a group of acquaintances and friends after the dinner and go out to a bar. Most years, it is the only time I see the inside of a bar and, even then, because I�ve hit my limit with a glass of wine with my dinner, I tend to drink ginger ale (which, not being Vernor�s is not real ginger ale to a girl from Detroit but that�s another story.) I even stay up way past my bedtime and wander in at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

But last night was a party night that lost its spirit. To begin with, I was more tired than usual. Yes, I had the excuse of getting up and leaving for the state capitol at the crack of dawn so I could judge a high school competition called �We the People.� Yes, I didn�t get back until 3:00 in the afternoon and then proceeded to help Kat with her on-going science project mess. Yes, my nap was only a half-hour and was interrupted by a telephone call. Still, in past years that wouldn�t have mattered. The excitement of the evening would have provided enough adrenaline for a very good time. I wouldn�t have dozed off in public during the speaker�no matter how tired I actually was.

To continue, we were missing some important faces. One couple who has always been a part of it was missing and their absence was noticeable. Last year, J. and his wife sat with us at the bar at the Metro and told us what a wonderful year he was having and how, except for a nagging back problem, but he had had a bad back for years, things were really going his way. He talked of his job. He talked of his children and he was as animated as I�ve ever seen him (which meant that he was as animated as a marionette but hey, he�s a wonderfully nice guy.) What we didn�t know was that his sore back was a symptom of virulent cancer. Now, instead of his presence at such events, we hear optimistic discussions of a very pessimistic situation.

Even without J.�s problems, it was a small, subdued circle. More and more, no one wants to go out late. Bar or home, home or bar? As we all get older, home is winning. Instead of coming, people give excuses and suggest we make plans another time, earlier in the evening.

And yet, if we look around the hotel bar, we see some of the group a bit older than us sitting there at the bar. True, it�s not all of them. It�s not even most of them. It is the group who, unlike us, look like a true portrait of them would include a beer in the hand and, perhaps, a cigarette. Last night, unlike us, they were animated in conversation, hands flying and volume rising.

Perhaps we are not getting too old to enjoy an evening once a year. Maybe it�s not age. Perhaps this is just a phase. Maybe there is hope for us.

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