Mental Jabber Part 2

10-20-04 Wednesday Night 9:45 pm.
Alexis told me that Rowan was sad about a number of things. Not said but confused and felt left out because she didn’t have a dog or a sister or brother. All of her friends had them. My guess is that later Rowan will be a mild introvert. Someone who occasionally enjoys silence and thinking about things. But anyway I thought to myself and said that the sad part is that that is probably the best time in her life. That every day after that will be worse than the next. So much carefree freedom. She can shit in her pants and it’s okay. She can slobber and disobey and it’s okay. And we feel heavier by the day. The weight of our bodies drag us down and everyday our legs complain a little more in the morning and our backs in the evening. We strive and struggle to work so we can earn money so we have good families and nice lawns. And we pay taxes. Taxes and taxes, we earn and we pay. A man sells a car, he pays taxes on earnings the person who buys it pays taxes to liscense the car plus the yearly taxes he pays to own the car, the he trades it in to the delearship who in turn sells it. The consumer pays sales tax, the dealership pays taxes on his income from the car that he in turn sells. It makes me curious to wonder how much the combined government agencies make on the average car, and maybe what type of car makes the governments the most money. And so on, and so forth. We fight our anxiety over money and friends and family and taxes and mortality. We fight to be healthy so we can live long lives, and ironically enough the ones that live long get to watch all their friends and family die. Cancer, buses, heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents. I have never forgotten the little old lady that used to come in the store. She was small and I remember her wearing light blue. She moved slow and was shaky and it looked like it was all she could do just to ask where something was in the store. I looked at her as she tried to talk and I could see that he mind was much faster than her body. He skin was so thin you could see her blood vessels. She always wore thin round glasses, I remember her wearing a small afgan around her back that was knitted in a checker pattern. She liked the low salt ham we had but would only get a few small slices. I remember I would help her with her grocery list toward the end. Some days she would come in and I could see in her eyes the amount physical pain she was in. Her eyes we watering up when she looked at me and I could tell she was starting to cry. So I held her arm and asked her what was wrong. She said that she couldn’t understand why she was still alive. She told me that she didn’t have any family left and she was alone, everyone she had known had died. She would come in about once a month. I think about now if there were any times that She was there and I avoided her for whatever reason, that I would like to have those times back, to spend some time with her. One day I had realized that she had stopped coming in. And though I feel sadness for her at the same time I hope she is happy where ever she is. And the thing that bothers me most is the fact that I never even asked her name. I have no idea what the woman’s name is. She was 103 I think. It seems to me that we never truly grow up. We never realize what’s important or gain real wisdom, or learn things is when people are old or it’s too late. I think that we would we would be more peaceful and understanding if we lived longer (in the golden years only). My favorite people are old people. Sometimes when I talk to them I try to imagine who they were when they we younger and how much have they changed.