Did you miss me?

I am turning 47 on Sunday. I have basically been thinking of that as my age for the last sixth months so nothing new there. What is so bizarre for me is the idea that if live as long as a palm reader told me I would a few weeks ago, early 90's late 80's, I am only half way through my life. I cannot imagine living the same number of years in the future as I have in the past. 47 is a lot of years. What on earth can I do with all that time?

Having a TBI and much less of a sense of time, distorts the day to day hours, but years are different. 25 years since college. I was thinking yesterday that it makes me even sadder now that I reconnected with all those people in the hopes of having friends again, and since then I have not heard from any of them. I reached out (I think) but was not invited to Ridgefield or Ann Arbor or even downtown to lower Manhattan. I know when people have small children that is the central focus of their lives. So I can sort of understand.

I ran into my friend J. yesterday. We had a falling out before my injury. I still love her so much. Her middle son said he remembered me. I probably last saw him at his 3rd or 4th bday and he is 10 now. I gave him a Grant puppet I bought at the memorial and he said he still has it and is still quite a history buff. I told him a story about a lesson I taught in the 4th grade recently.

The lesson was to learn about U.S. coins. In pairs, the students sorted 6 of the most commonly used coins these days based on characteristics of the coins. So, if the rule was silver colored, you would put the nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar on one side and the penny and Sacajawea dollar on the other side. The kids were more creative than I expected. I figured ridged edges and smooth, monuments on back or not, small and large, evenly divisible by ten or not, and more than one group noticed left facing heads and right facing heads. In one group, one partner was truly stumped. I, too, was unable to figure out the rule. On one side was the penny and the half dollar and on the other side the remaining 4 coins. After I gave up, I was stunned to hear the rule was people who were assassinated and people who were not. History buff, I figured, but who thinks that way?