Wow. Well I hardly imagine I will still be alive at that time…. But here goes…. to the writing group prompt: Write your diary entry for a date 20 years from now.

Eighty three years old.

Impossible.

Several friends have birthdays this week.

In a few days will be the birthday of the person who used to be my favorite aunt. I suppose she’s still my favorite among my parents female siblings, but none of them really care to keep any communication going with me.

It’s likely my fault. I never did feel like I fit in with the family, and for most of my life, friends have been more important than family.

Despite what many social scientists have shown is an astounding 25% of American families with estranged children, it still seems like most people, including those of my first circle of friends, prioritize family time. That is ok. At age 83, I find myself more and more satisfied with my dead friends who never met me, supplementing, but of course never supplanting, the remaining live ones.

Yes, the dead friends. The writers, some, if not most, or even almost all, of them long dead before my birth, keep me company. And anyway, the cosmologists assure us that time, as we understand it passing, is an illusion.

The only reality is eternity.

What has been, as well as what will be, is already always here.

As John Newton wrote, “When we’ve been here 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we’d first begun.”

All we have to do in order to let this fact of our reality sink in is go outside on a clear, moonless (dark!) night. Admittedly, this is not that frequent in Michigan, so one must plan in advance to be able to take advantage of it. But, on finding yourself outside on such a clear moonless night, look up and think about when the light from any six visible stars started its photonic journey to our retinas.

Hmm, seems like I have been writing for a third person. Who is that? Is it my own ghost? Is it the universal soul? Who the heck do I think will ever read this?

Who?

You?

Not directly related to my content, except at the macro-scale of the question mark!