It sounds obvious, but... we get old. It's one of the first things we forget once our teens are over and we've stopped counting the hairs in our armpits. Freaking out about aging becomes depressing or funny or pathetic only if you make the incorrect assumption that everyone else lives inside a change-proof hyperbaric chamber.
A few days ago, I had a business lunch with a guy I thought was about 10 years older than I am. I'm 46, and he looked to be 55 and resembled every English teacher you've ever had. At the end of lunch he said, "You know, I was born the same week as you..." and went on to discuss all the same music we listened to in high school. Meanwhile, it was all I could do to compose myself while looking around for a reflective surface — a knife blade, the hologram on my Visa card — to convince myself I didn't look 55 like this guy did. I felt as if I had progeria, that disease in which you age half a century in five years. That's what growing older does to a guy. We've all bumped into friends who look like hell. Our first thought is always divorce, booze, or one of those other wicked speed bumps on the road of life. What's really happening, of course, is that your friend is in the middle of a progerial plunge. |
No comments:
Post a Comment