Getting Older

I'm having another birthday this coming week.  Number 74.  Just for fun I made a list of various changes I've been experiencing over the last few years.  Et voilà:

• Waking way earlier ... and, conversely, going to bed way earlier.
• Getting and making fewer phone calls (which is fine).
• Deciding I really no longer enjoy traveling -- or going places (and being there) -- alone.
• Only seeing friends over (a usually Chinese) lunch out ... no more dinner parties.
• Going to the library much more often than before.
• Doing lots of de-cluttering as well as putting things in order like inventorying possessions (where they came from, sentimental value, etc.).
• Perpetually thinking about down-sizing to a smaller house with less to care for and less expense.
• No longer bothering to put on any makeup except lipstick.
• Rarely having an occasion to dress up.
• Actually being able to cross things off a long-term "to do" list.
• Still (always) enjoying chocolate but being satisfied with very small pieces.
• Eating simpler meals and eating them at my computer rather than at the dining room table.
• Hiring others to deal with damage control rather than trying to figure it out myself.
• Finding clichés more and more tedious -- stepping up to the plate, the smoking gun, thinking outside the box, oh my God.
• Totally enjoying having a week ahead with nothing on my calendar.
• No longer feeling that I should learn to speak French.
• Feeling that a lot of people in this country (especially in the political, economic, business, and media arenas) are totally bonkers.
• Feeling gratitude well up in me over assorted people/times.
• Finding myself eating less.
• Almost never going to a movie theater anymore.
• Using my computer to look things up rather than my dictionary or encyclopedia.
• Being more alert, more careful about such things as going down stairs, backing out of a parking lot.
• Going around with single words in my mind which I speak out loud so I won't forget --"parka" (mend it), "soup" (make it), "weather" (look up the forecast), "dust" (where the sunlight revealed dust kittens).
• Being glad that I learned to play the piano, that I once smoked (it was fun) but equally glad I gave it up when I did, that I never did drugs of any sort, and that I went off adventuring around the world when I did.
• Being glad I grew up in the '50s when we wore pleated skirts, blouses with Peter Pan collars, and saddle oxfords ... our hair in pony tails or short and curled, having put it up in rollers at night.  Our education then was good, too, and things seemed  slower, simpler, more gracious.
• Realizing I'd not now be able to attend the college I did because of the cost.
• Spending every evening reading a book or watching a rented movie or something on PBS.
• Feeling that my youth was a totally different life.