Living Independently

Grandma and Grandpa are in their mid-80s, and I blame them for my misconceptions about old age. They both represent very well the phrase living independently. As for Grandma, if I've been meaning to call her all day, and finally get a second to pick up the phone, and see that it's 10 at night, I can call. In fact, she's more likely to be awake this time of night than I am. I can safely assume she is up cleaning her kitchen or checking the paper for coupons or winding down from some gripping episodes of Wheel-of-Fortune and Jepordy. She shops and returns things all day and bakes all through Christmas, and never cooks us a dinner with less than 7 side dishes. I count every time. Grandpa is the same. His golf game was strong until a few years ago, and the complaints about aches and pains just started. I always assumed life just got nicer and nicer. It just seemed fair. You work for a while, and then, you just get to retire.

So this lasted until the beginning of my 20s, when I started to see just how dissalusioned I had been. Darn. Grandma and Grandpa's gene pool has held out well--with them and many of their brothers and sisters. This would be helpful, except for they adopted my mother. So any benefits I receive are purely by association. Darn.