reading Fifth Business

Introduction

All right, I admit it- I've gotten to be an old person.  When I was a child, my best friend and I would run around (when our legs were still good) and laugh at old people who said things like "when our legs were still good."  it made us happy to laugh at something together, and I don't regret making fun of old people with Annie.  I don't mind it when children laugh at me- actually, it makes me happy.  I love remembering what it was like to laugh a child's laugh and hear her laugh with me. 
She was just beautiful then:  I never was.  You would think I would be jealous of her, but I loved her too much.  I still do, although we don't laugh as well now.  She stopped being beautiful.  Our faces are covered up by our oldness.  Which is kind of why I'm writing a memoir.  Maybe the wrinkles can fade a little for me. 
Usually people begin their stories by introducing some wonderfully oversimplified theme- some lesson it has taken them their entire lives to learn.  I'm not going to, but not because I haven't learned some hard lessons.  I wish I could save you the pain of learning things firsthand, but that never works, so I wont bother.  I just want to wish you a happy life and tell you about mine. 

PS- I hope dearly that nobody's making you read this.  I know schools make odd choices in books and this may once be in some English teacher's curriculum.  I don't mind that, but I worked really hard living and living to tell the tale.  Please don't have a bad attitude about listening to me- humor an old lady or skip it.