Shorter?

The other night Nancy gave me a funny look and said, "I hate to tell you this, but I think you're getting shorter."  She had me stand with my back to the door frame so she could mark my height and then got out the measuring tape.  Sure enough, I now measure, generously, five foot seven and and a half.  Formerly I was five foot ten.

I've never been especially proud of my height; I was never one of those six-footers tree-topping over everyone else, but the knowledge I'd mislaid a full two and a half inches distressed me, nevertheless.  It is useless trying to look on the bright side of this, that I'm harder to spot by an NSA Drone, or that I have a smaller carbon footprint; this is troubling news, and no doubt about it.

What gets me is that this struck from such an unexpected quarter.  Of all the things time is taking away from me - my eyesight, my hair, my so-called good looks - why that?  Is the world out to actually diminish me on top of everything else?  What will it go for next, my opacity?

Time will tell.  Time will tell.