The title is from one of Steve's songs and doesn't exactly fit, but it comes darn close.
I think I'm depressed. But I'm not sure. Maybe I'm suffering a backlash which is making me more upbeat than normal.
Awhile ago I wrote a journal entry about my lack of social life. It may seem that with all the SPCA stuff and all the traipsing back and forth to theatrical events that I have a very full social life, but I bemoaned the lack of a buddy in town. I used to have several of them, but for various reasons, we are no longer in touch with one another.
I never posted that entry, for various reasons, and it was probably just as well as I did not.
This week, I've had the opposite problem -- so many social engagements I actually almost forgot one today.
The week has included lunches at various restaurants with three old friends, none of whom I have seen in over two years. There was also tonight's scheduled party, the Cousins Day Christmas dinner tomorrow, and a 2-day get-away with our Pinata group to the Napa Valley while Ashley sits here and puppy sits for us.
Maybe my social life isn't as bleak as I thought it was. But while the increase in social contact is good, it is also somewhat depressing.
First there was Cousins Day, where Kathy hauls her oxygen tank and I bring my blood glucosse monitor and all three of us line up our stack of pills before each meal. (My mother takes ONE vitamin pill. That's it.)
Then reacquainting with these women was on the one hand wonderful, on the other hand depressing. We're all at least two years older. Some are handling the idea of old age better than others. There was talk of stockpiling pills so that when they couldn't take aging and the problems it brings with it any more, there would be pills to ease them out of life.
("Just my luck," said one. "I'd probably put myself in a vegetative state for twenty years and still be aware of what was going on around me, but unable to communicate." That sounds like what would be MY fate if I tried something dumb like that!)
There was a report on one woman's minor back surgery for arthritic deposits, and liver problems and a host of other ailments. I came home from the last lunch so depressed, wondering if this is going to be the rest of my life--sitting around comparing aches and pains with friends and trying to find the most fool-proof, least painful way to off myself!
The mail came and in it was a letter from a doctor in another state. In my present state of mind, the only thing I could think of was that it was someone telling me of the death of my friend Diane (but fortunately it was not)
And then as I started writing this entry I had a call from another woman who had flown in from out of town because she just received word of a friend's death and had come for the funeral. She said it was the third funeral of friends she had attended in the past six months. I knew the friend slightly, but not enough to be informed of her death. She was younger than I am, I believe, and had a massive stroke.
Walt and I were scheduled to go to my editor's Christmas party tonight, which, as I have reported each year, is my favorite event of the year. But I knew that it was more important to get together with my friend, who is alone in a motel tonight and not wanting to be with the bereaved family, so I called Derrick, explained the circumstances, and asked if Walt could come to the party by himself. He was effusive and said of course he could...and that if my friend needed a party atmosphere, to feel free to bring her as well.
My friend invited me to meet her where she is staying so we could go to dinner, but I had to explain that I can't drive because of my eyes, so she would have to come and pick me up.
We had a chance to sit and talk for a very long time and again it was somewhat depressing, though wonderful to see her again.
I don't like this getting old jazz! It's bad enough that your own body starts falling apart, but so do all your friends, assuming they don't die first.
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