She would laugh, because she knew it was just a varnish. Nothing too serious. Just things that you collect in your brain in the course of a lifetime of being observant and alone.
As she came to think of it, she had been old since she was 12 years old, around her father's illness and death, when she was left to her own devices.
As she grew older, her loneliness thrusted her into reading and then writing.
People born old should grow younger. Maybe that explained why she was so impetuous, a risk taker as they would say.
Even though she was piling up losses and set backs, she was still "going strong". "How can you be so strong?" they would say. She knew it was not a matter of choice, but instead the total lack of choice that kept her going. All she had to do was nothing. Just remain alive.
If it was for her own choosing, she would be already gone for good. She just didn't have the energy to take herself out of misery.
She reflected on the dementia that had affected so many members of her family. Maybe that was the way to grow younger. One's mental faculties start regressing until one can no longer be responsible for oneself. One ceases to be strong and is seeing with pity. Someone will make the choices for you now and will carry the burden of such choices.
