Hmmmmmm!

The other day I was sitting at my computer, elbows on keyboard shelf, my chin cupped in my hands. I was staring at my Publisher's address book.  I admit I was oblivious to my surroundings and had no idea how long Frankie had been standing in the doorway.

When she spoke I just about jumped out of my skin.  She wanted to know what I was doing.

Fact was I was contemplating my address book.  And here is one of those things that nobody ever tells you...about getting old.  

When you are young and your horizons expand from high school, to work experience, to getting married; your address book expands with each and every major event.  You try to keep up, but eventually the address book of your teens has become a sloppy, ink stained, crossed out mess.  I don't know about you, but when I finally married I realized my old address book could never take in all the additional names and addresses of my husband's family. So, I splurged and bought a new address book. It was lovely.

It was beautiful, there were flowers on the front...and...back.

It was neat and done in pencil so if I had to change an address it would be easy, and quick.

It worked well until the day the closest thing to correct an address was A PEN, which began the downward spiral of my lovely address book.

Over the years as new names were added to the book, I took the lazy way and simply tore off the return address label from the envelope and tucked it into the book.  What the heck...I was the only one to use the book so why did it matter. Oh, the book got over stuffed with tiny slips of paper.

Then, I got older, my family grew, my kids married.  New names came into old book, but some began to go out.  It was a subtle change and at first I hardly noticed.  First one page had a black permanent marker edit. Poof, someone was gone; then...poof...another and then again another.

Eventually there was another major change in my life.  My husband passed away. Condolences arrived and I wanted to respond to all the folks who and been so kind to me during that time.  Ugh, I took a good look at my address book, yuck.  I decided to buy myself a new one.  So, I did, this one was smaller but more sturdy and had a waterproof cover. At last I could get rid of those tiny slips of paper.

However, within two years there were once more tiny slips of paper in the new book.  People were retiring and moving.  HOW DARE THEY! Only this time I got smart, I still used those return address labels but I neatly cut them from the envelope and taped them onto the page they belonged in the book.

Things were looking up!!!!

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a friend to tell me a mutual friend of ours had passed away.  I began to thumb through my blue, waterproof book preparing to remove her name when I noticed to my dismay, that just about every third page had a permanent black mark that eliminated an entry.  And these eliminations were people who had been in the all my books for the greater part of my life. How can it be that there are no new entries, but only old ones being removed? For instance, after the latest removal, there is only one name and address left in the A's.  Sigh.

And that is how I happened to be sitting at my computer when Frankie scared the wits out of me.

I was contemplating if I still needed my "hard copy" address book or if I should put the remaining addresses in it into the book I have set up in my Publisher's program.  I guess "hard copy" address books are passé, and who (for heaven's sake) even writes a letter anymore that makes an address book necessary...and who (for heaven's sake) is ever going to tell you when you get old "new names and addresses don't come into your address book, they only go out".

As do the people in your life.