Complex Numbers

Getting old sucks...

...at least, until you consider the alternative.

There's this girl, Amy, whom I dated in high school. She didn't live near me; she lived outside of Baltimore, a couple hours away. Long story for another time. We weren't all that serious, and the usual teen crap happened and we fell out of touch.

Yesterday, her best friend found me on Facebook - my rarely-used real-name account, which I only keep up because it's easier for old friends with names like "Bill Smith" to find ME with my unique name than it is for me to find THEM. So we exchanged the usual "oh my god has it been 25 years?" catching up emails, and she gave me updates on a lot of people we used to know - all of them, of course, married, in stable careers, 1-6 kids, happy, that sort of thing, including my former girlfriend's twin brother. She notably avoided talking about Amy, so I asked.

Turns out Amy died in late 1999, at 31, dropped from some rare and undetected heart condition. She'd just gotten back from her honeymoon.

So yeah, getting old sucks, but it beats the hell out of the alternative.

Most of the time.