(Teenager not pictured because he went to the farmer's market with his grandma.)
This was a good year, all told. It was heavy on illustration, yardwork, chickens, home improvement projects, and family get-togethers. We lost a much-loved cat. We gained a badly-behaved kitten. Everyone is alive and well.
This was also the year my neck began to lose structural integrity. My insides began to have territory disputes and a surgeon has been threatening them with eviction. My knees are disgraceful, and I'm not talking to them. I can't run anymore without them wadding up into immobile knots of pain, but I don't care too much, because I really hate running. Stand up straight and don't get too fat, says Claire Fraser on the subject of good aging, and I'm doing okay with that. I think.
I'll finish my graphic novel. I'll start another one. I'll finish the sweater I'm knitting, finish the quilt in my sewing trunk. I'll get on a plane, which I've been avoiding for years. I'll try to stop wishing for emails from people long gone and send more emails to the people I have and love. I'll learn to play the piano, even if it's just one song by rote. I'll make the holidays and birthdays bigger and better, even though I am shy about parties. I'll figure out how to get the chickens to lay eggs, instead of just lounging like Grecian beauties. Or learn to paint Grecian chickens, if that doesn't work out.
Aging is fine if you accept it and outpace it with good living. I've never understood people who say, "I'm not old! I feel exactly the same as I did at 15!" What a thought. I want to get OLD. Really, properly, interestingly old.
Working on it.
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