Old Friends & Future Hopes

Dear Old Retired Friend,

I hope you are alive still through this COVID season. I understand you and your lifetime partner have generally kept antisocially alone in your home you bought ages ago and never left. I also know you both are grumpy, stubborn, cantankerous old souls who have outlived many of your other friends and probably will continue to outlive many of the rest (or at least your neighbors, who as you have pointed out to me have all mostly sold out and left the homesteaders like you and your man to die alone as they escape to retirement homes, vacations, or wherever they end up).

My own homesteader and I are hanging in there. We haven't killed each other yet. The house could use work but it always could, as you know. I quit my job. Thank you for calling me brave and telling me I have the heart of the 60's/70's in me. I miss the 60's/70's. Never lived through them, but they sound pretty cool. My fellow homesteader really likes the music.

We're attempting the family thing, which I know you never tried, so I'll tell you how that works out. Maybe it's a silly thing to do anymore, but as you say there are sillier things like drugs and alcohol to die with. Maybe focusing on children as the thing to eventually kill us isn't so bad. Hopefully the environment doesn't kill them prematurely and bringing them into this world isn't the awful act of selfishness I always thought it was. You might tell me that the world is always near ending - sometimes just the adventure of living in the end of times might be what brings us the most passionate moments of our lives.

Thank you for sending me the actual mailing address of our other old coworker who recently lost her husband, which I only know through her Facebook page, but nobody posts their addresses and clicking a button hasn't the soul of sending a card or a care package. I'm glad you still crochet. I do too, I must remember to make that gift for my current coworker, she has had a tough year too.

I will continue to send these randomly timed emails to you despite a working postal system and the ability to write actual cards, as you constantly remind me. I appreciate the fact that you embrace my chosen digital crutch and adapt to my preference. I'm vaccinated now and maybe one day - my grouchy overprotective homesteader says I still have to wait 2 weeks for max efficacy - I can stop by and we can chat in person, which is honestly my favorite method of communication, but only with others who appreciate the same. My homesteader is a bit lacking in that department but that's alright - we have plenty of time and means to communicate.

Never miss our old company but I do miss the company I had in it.

Best and Warmest Regards Old Friend,

- The Wordy One