No matter how Dhammic and strong and stoical one is, it does leave an enduring mark as one goes through darkness stumbling at every footstep, never knowing what the next day will bring.
A proud and take no prisoners kind of person I have become calm but not without a deep sense of melancholia about life and what it really means.
It has also made me sentimental .. something I never was.
It all came to a head last weekend when I visited a casual dining restaurant with my niece, and the piped music was a song by a young girl named Ariana Grande (my niece said), and suddenly I remembered a similar dining experience about 20 years back and the song that was playing was one of my favorites "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" followed by "Sweet Caroline".
And I felt so terribly lonely. It is not the loneliness that goes away if one is among lots of friends and relatives. It is a disconnect .. a realization that one is too old .. that everyone sitting there considers Game of Thrones to be the greatest thing since the wheel was invented and no one .. not one person there has seen "The Godfather" or "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
How can I use Dhamma to get past this .. and grow old with no anguish? I don't mean the physical deterioration but the distance from the rest of the world.

No_Mind