Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.
The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.
If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the prompts are supplied by Cindi and can be found here.

This week's words/prompts are:

write a diary entry dated 10 years in the future


Dear Diary; I notice you are still almost as pristine as the day I bought you. So many crisp, unused pages. I guess I'm not so good with writing things down on a daily basis, nothing much happens on a day to day existence anyway. I look to the previous page and see my last entry was December 12, ten years ago. That was the day Missy died. You were already three years old, but had so few entries. 

Not much has happened in those ten years, certainly nothing as exciting as moving to a house of my own, closer to my kids, who are now all middle aged. I'm still here in this little flat. I still get up each morning to feed Lola, who is now as old as Missy was when she died. Lola is also slower and a little crochetty, as Missy was, that comes with age, I know, I'm that way myself now, sometimes at least. These days I often go back to bed and wait for Lola to join me, we get another nap before I need to get up and eat. Maybe I'll turn on the computer, maybe not. Most of the people whose blogs I used to read have stopped writing, a couple have died.

Same in real life too, with some of the neighbours I used to visit with, a couple have died, several have moved into nursing homes to get the care they can no longer give themselves. I'll visit them there if the weather is nice enough. It's often far too hot now to go anywhere that isn't strictly necessary and just getting to the shops and back is a slower journey than it used to be. Some of the newer, younger neighbours have offered to shop for me, but I still prefer to choose my own fruits and vegetables. I'll do it as long as I can still make the distance. 

I look in the mirror now and see much more white hair with just a hint of the colour that used to be there, the wrinkles have advanced, more of my teeth are artificial, but in spite of all that, I'm still me. And 77 isn't so old anyway. I still have reasonably good health, can still laugh at life, laugh at jokes, ignore the TV news if it is too upsetting, with the dryness of our Earth being so widespread now from the global warming, too many countries have droughts where before they had lush greenness. 
There are scientists who keep daily track of what's left of the polar icecaps, which still look large to me, but I guess they are shrinking faster now. So much damage in so little time. How? Why? What can we do?

Behind me, as I write, Lola struggles to jump down from the bed, I go to help her and she hisses at me, but accepts the lift to the floor. 

This is probably the longest entry I'll ever write. Maybe I'll write again tomorrow, maybe you will have to wait another ten years to feel the air on your pages and the pressure of my pen. Perhaps I'll remember to write about my trip to the beach. The Aged Care Community Bus will be picking me up tomorrow morning and a group of us are going to lunch at a café then go walking along the jetty, maybe even along the Esplanade a bit. I miss the ocean even more than ever, now that I can't go so often. 

I look around me as I think what else to write, my helper is coming today to vacuum the floors, which still get a daily covering of cat hair. The place looks empty now that I've given away so many things. I still have my favourite books and dvds, but many have gone to my children and grandchildren. Even the great grandchildren have chosen a few things. Knick-knacks that gathered dust have all gone too. 
I don't miss them. 

I'll clean up the breakfast things before the helper comes, I get a different girl each time, some are talkative, others just get the job done and leave as quickly as they can. Maybe they don't like to be around elderly people, perhaps we scare them with thoughts of their own mortality. 
Anyway, that's enough for now. Goodbye Dear Diary, until next time.

Comments

  1. This is a lovely use of Cindi's prompt.
    I do hope much of it is true, and that you are still yourself in ten (or even twenty) years time.

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    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child; I hope to still be myself also. Alzheimer's doesn't run in my family so there's a good chance for me.

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  2. Well at least the world is still here in 10 years, if hotter than ever. That is encouraging. Hope you don't give up blogging in 10 years for those bloggers you lose will be replaced by a younger set--I hope.

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    Replies
    1. Arkansas Patti; I can't promise I'll still be blogging, but I will let everyone know if I decide to stop. I'm not so sure about a younger set of bloggers, most of them seem to be facebookers, tweeters and instagrammers.

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  3. How i hope we can find ways to avoid much of that fate. Excellent diary entry.

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    Replies
    1. messymimi; I hope we can avoid a lot of things but the world is run by those that have the money to get what they want.

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  4. Oh my, isn't that just a beautiful entry in the diary. It made a tear come to my eye..
    Merry Christmas to you and your family...Margaret

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    Replies
    1. Margaret-whiteangel; thank you. I don't keep a real diary and I never did, so I wasn't sure I could pull this off.

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  5. A bitter sweet entry.
    Is the Aged Care Community Bus fiction or real?
    "Our" shopping Centre in Perth/Madeley offers teas for retirees, mornings for pre-schoolers and much more - nothing like that here in Germany (that I know of).
    Only Churches offer meetings for elderlies. Sometimes around Christmas... But maybe I do not look close enough, what for, there is no one left.

    If that helps, our neighbour is in his mid-80´s and still walks up to 4th floor, even carrying things (like a whole beer crate even!), drives a car. My parents in law are around that age, too, and make all their way to Spain each winter in their own caravan, so 77 is not old. And my MIL has white hair ever since I know her, which 25 years :-)
    FIL says, get old or die, and he´s right.

    You really do write very well and thoughtful.
    And, wee. Do I miss the (Aussie) ocean (ours are often brown or otherwise dirty, and cold!!!)

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    Replies
    1. Iris Flavia; the Aged Care Community bus is real, but I don't know if it will still be around ten years from now. You have to sign up to Aged Care, any time after age 65 and when you go on an outing you pay $5 for the bus and then pay for any meals you have while out. A friend and neighbour goes out three times a week. She is 83.
      Our local hotel has a seniors lunch available for a reduced cost but you need to show your seniors card, which is Government issued at age 60 if you remember to apply for one.
      I can still walk up to a 4th floor if I have to, but I certainly couldn't carry heavy things.
      I certainly prefer getting old to dying.

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  6. Oh that's sad in a way but very true the older we get the more out worlds shrink, I remember my mother in law saying many years ago when we went to visit her we should take some things home and the kids should too and play with them and break them up so they had some use before they die as they were only collecting dust at her house.
    Merle..............

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    1. Merle; my mum used to ask us which of her things we wanted, but then she just wrote our names on the bases of whatever and we didn't get any of the things until she died. She was always disappointed when I said I didn't want any of the things, just the cabinet they were in, because it was actually mine, but still had to say no to it because it was huge and I just didn't have space for it. I like your Mum's way better, she got to see you all enjoying the things.

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  7. Diary had to wait a while, but what he got in quality made up for quantity. My grandma used to insist we take things every time we visited. Sometimes they were trinkets, sometimes they were special, like sets of dishes. I chose the one that was red Depression glass.

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    Replies
    1. Val; I remember you posting about the red depression glass and would love to see photos of it. my Grandma didn't even know us kids and apparently didn't want to. She lived in Germany, all the Grandparents did and we left there when I was a baby.

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