Triage

When I was three, in the earliest memories that I have, I didn’t care. I had the ego of discovering that I existed in the very center of the universe, even if I didn’t know what a universe was. When I was seven, I still didn’t care, although, I was starting to acknowledge the existence of other people. But then when I was 12, I read The Grapes of Wrath and I began to care and I began to think. The universe might be infinite in all directions… but that didn’t mean that I was at its center in terms of everyone else. I believe that I really cared throughout my teens and into my twenties, and through my 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s…. Now I’m almost 80 and I look at how much life I have left…. and I just can’t care as much. I’m not going to be completely selfish; I’m just not going to do other people’s caring for them. I’m going to prioritize, I’m going to triage my actions (a precise definition of "triage" would be good here… but I’m not going to do that work for other people either). And if old emotions try to dissuade me from being efficient about my responses, I can just cut them off. I'm old, I'm losing everything soon, so what's one more? I don’t have the time to deal with lost causes.