'once' is not now

.
There was a time when a friend and I moved all of my furniture and books out of a five-story walk-up in New York, loaded it into a truck, drove 175 miles to a destination in Springfield, Mass., unloaded the truck and carted the stuff up another five flights, and then drove back to New York in an effort not to miss a football game we both wanted to see.

Yesterday, I shoveled a thin layer of snow off the deck outside the house and sawed off a two-inch branch that had broken during the recent, untoward snow storm ... and felt every bit as exhausted as after that earlier time when I could accomplish more.

The mind remembers and the body declines to comply. Old passions simply take too much energy and are relegated to some small corner where, on occasion, they whimper and whine. Memory says, "I can" while facts opine without venom, "Bullshit!" And it's not just physical exertion that suffers such bruises. Even thinking requires more energy than it's worth ... assuming I wanted to try.

It's not exactly sad-making. But it does require a new prescription for the outlook glasses.

'Once' is not now.
.