I pull the two wheeled bins up the driveway, one on each side of me, like recalcitrant children. Blue for recycling and brown for trash. They’re both empty, because the trucks have come and gone. Sliding the bins into place like brothers from different mothers stationed at the side of the house, I think: One more Tuesday trash day complete. How many more of these will I have?

The cycles of life are never clearer to me than when I cart the week’s waste out to the curb on Monday nights, and return the empty barrels on Tuesdays. Look at all the cans and containers we’ve used up and cast aside, in just seven days. Too many Coke cans. A Noosa a day for me, and hearts of palm for Susan. Week after week, I’ve repeated this routine, down the hill at night, up the hill in the morning, at least 1000 times now, at this house alone. Do I have another 1000 to look forward to?

That hill is another thing. When I’m 65, or 75, or 85, will I still be climbing that driveway after checking the mail? What if I can’t? What if I think I can, but really, I can’t? What if I’m gingerly tottering down the driveway some Thursday afternoon and fall flat on my face? And what if that’s the last time I ever do that?

Stop! Stop thinking like that! You’re just being morose. You’re a young man, relatively, with decades ahead of you. You walk every day, you bike, and you stay active. Sure, you’ve got a severe sugar addiction, and you could stand to lose, oh, say 50 pounds at least, but you’re looking good!

This steep driveway and the grassy hill next to it have been the scene of many sledding wonders for neighborhood kids, and my own children. And some shoveling ordeals. I put away my Flexible Flyer decades ago, but not so for my snow shovel. I can clear this patch of asphalt in 30 minutes singlehandedly, after a typical storm. That includes laying down salt. I’m proud of that, my New England roots flexing their muscles. But how long can I keep that up?

There’s no answer here. I don’t have a way to end this post, except to repeat what my Zen subconscious is muttering at me now: It’s the doing that counts. Do, and do more. It’s all chaos, it’s all unknown. That hasn’t changed just because I’m getting old. I’ll keep making my trips up and down the driveway because those trips are me. The shoveling is me. This typing right now is me. I can’t control what happens to elderly me any more than I can control what happens to me an hour from now. It all just is.