"Growing old is not for sissies".
I first heard those words in a documentary on PBS, many long years ago, when old age seemed a long way away
and while I appreciated the truth in the statement,
the actuality of the situation, here and now, is
that growing older is learning to cope with pain.
I am not talking about crippling pain. Instead, age brings us all aching joints, at the very least and if that is all, then we think we are lucky!
When I think about the rather pathetic tolerance to pain, that I had as a child, I am amazed, that as an older adult, I can ignore a level of pain, that once would have had me curled into a fetal position.
So, everything has a benefit and if we look for it, a silver lining.
Contentment is a wonderful thing and while I was never truthfully discontent, age has given me a greater appreciation of what I have and less desire for MORE.
I have too much stuff anyway and I have proved to myself, several times, that even when it comes to my beloved comic books and art books, that my memory is letting me down... I hate to say how many times I have bought the same item again!
The moment is upon me, I think, to make a change in the way that I have conducted my affairs. For just about half a century, I have bought comic books, art books, fanzines etc., on a weekly excursion, through the book shops of the cities in which I have lived but even that has faltered and recently, it has been more of a monthly trip.
The objects of my affection are no longer the siren call that they once were and I am content (that darned word again) to let them go.
Modern day comic books, do not delight and entertain me, in the way the ones that I began collecting with did.
One of these two issues of the Fantastic Four, was most likely, the first four-colour comic book that I ever bought, way back in Birmingham, England, in 1970.
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