Two reunions within the past week have nearly done me in. The first, in the Berkshires at my brother-in-law's home was a family reunion. I was miserable: the older generation (mine) was consigned to a finished, but damp, basement and we "slept" on a wooden pallet covered with a thin mattress that was called a "futon." The others were put in four upstairs bedrooms and one main floor bedroom. I was lonelier than ever. None of my reference points when I was a kid or how my life developed would have been of any interest to the younger generation. Only at one point, between the search for an activity that the two youngest generations could do together and the excessive evening wine drinking, did some area of commonality form: when my sister-in-law and I started humming show tunes from the past. (Her voice sounded high and quavery like an elderly female churchgoer singing a hymn.) I left after about 40 hours feeling very stressed.
We stopped to see some old friends who had moved to the southwestern part of the state seven years ago to be closer to their children who live in NYC. They have become very "new-agey" with "maze/meditation" paths cut around their property and lush produce planting beds. It was quite attractive - especially their gazebo screenhouse built by Amish still, I couldn't wait to return home which we did after a couple of hours.
A day after getting home my wife's brother arrived to attend his/my 50th high school reunion. I didn't want to attend the dinner/dance the first night but I did agree to go to a "picnic" the next day at a nearby American Legion post. There were only about 30 very old looking people there many of whom I had no idea who they were. There were two types: old and fat or old and sickly thin. (I guess I would fall into the old and sickly thin category except for some odd reason my hair is still mostly the same color as in h.s.) Some people sat around and drank beer and my brother-in-law pretended it was great to see people he would have had nothing to do with in h.s. and who would have had nothing to do with him. Couldn't wait to go...
I haven't been exercising regularly after these events and feel diminished. Maybe, in the end, it's just better to follow your intuition, accept the sadness and loneliness, and stay home.