I deeply appreciate your circumstances, the more deeply the older I get. It seems opportunities to participate in friendships decline continually in life, and drop off precipitously after 50 or so. It's also difficult to see myself as a beacon of hope and positivity as I have long maintained that hope is my worst enemy, and fear my best friend. Fear keeps me alert and ready to zig and zag when the path ahead requires it, while nothing more disrupts me and causes distress than hope crushed. So I strive to not hope, to simply ordain my steps one after the other, without particular expectations that can be dashed and leave me distraught.

God forbid you find yourself reduced to my paucity of hope.

I wish you well, to find joy and contentment in the small corners of satisfaction availed us daily, and not to the giddy heights of mere happiness and great conceits that seem synonymous with grandiose plans, which all too often crash on the rocks of reality, leaving only crushing disappointment in our selves, in their wake.