I hated lime Popsicle when I was a kid. Now I have an obsession with them. Go figure. At least I am obsessed with the “real fruit” kind. I am not sure how you make a real fruit lime Popsicle when they are nothing but water and sugar but I can at least console myself that my habit is not as bad as it could be.

My other habit is to spend too much time doing stuff. I obsess over this or that until I have spent hundreds of hours on something that could have been done in 10. The difference, of course, is that it really is better with 100. However, the marginal gain on the product is unclear.

Together, along with a trip to the dentist, some other junk food and life I got sick. I am not sure what pushed me over the edge but something did. I am reminded rather bluntly that humans have frailties.

I talked with an old friend last week about growing older. It is not that we are decrepit with age, we are still active and vital with out communities and still being productive but we don’t stand on chairs to reach a tipi-top thing anymore. Or, we are not supposed to stand on chairs like that anymore. It was dumb when were were 25 but at that age you usually bounce. At 45 it was dumber and it caused a lot of aches and pains but it was a passing thing. Take it 20 years further along and life is different. I jokingly said, “Well if we are going to stand in a chair to reach way over our heads, we have to at least keep our cell phones in our pockets.”

I cannot count the number of times I have heard of someone calling on a cell phone family member who is in another room in the same house. Usually it is something like, “can I go to the game tomorrow night with my friends?” or perhaps, “when you come this way could you bring me something to drink?” or maybe “I am in the bathtub and just realized there are no towels in here. Can you bring me one?” It can be, “Honey, I slipped and fell and I cannot get up. Can you come help me?”

So here I am, cell phone in my pocket, trying to finish the last of the insurance inventory on our personal property while slumped over because my stomach and back still hurt while eating a lime Popsicle without dripping it on the keyboard.

I shall declare victory over the lime Popsicle. I may declare victory over the inventories if they go out tomorrow as planned. I don’t know what a victory is with my human frailties.

I think the answer is for me to learn that all humans, regardless of age and abilities, are frail but that is part of the human condition. We are all frail and in that frailness we can find space to be with each other and learn that being frail is not a bad thing. It is an opportunity for being loved.