I’m going to grow old—eventually. Until the signs become undeniable, old will always be someone a few steps ahead of me, even if it’s just by a month or two.
My relationship with aging has always been shaky. In high school, when someone asked what I’d do when I got old, I said, “You mean really old, like 40? If I make it that far, I’ll start doing hard drugs. At that age, who cares about addiction?”
By the time I hit forty, everything flipped. Addiction isn’t aspirational at any age, and forty turned out to be nothing like I’d imagined. It felt more like an upgraded version of twenty, but with better stories and far fewer hangovers.
Now, at sixty, I still don’t think of myself as old. But the signs are there. At the gym, the kid at reception greets the guys ahead of me with “Whassup Dude,” then pivots to “Good evening, Sir” when I reach the desk. Props to his parents for raising him right, even if the he makes stings my ego.
Right now, I’m sitting outside a cafe on a warm Monday morning—iced coffee sweating beside me, a fresh workout playlist in my AirPods. I scan the crowd and think: I’m probably the youngest person here. But that estimate depends entirely on how I’m choosing to see things.
First observation: It’s mid-morning on a workday. Everyone here is likely retired or on vacation.
Second observation: I see these same faces every day. So, they’re probably like me—retired. In the Bay Area, retirement is either attainable or an impossibly distant dream, depending on which decade’s threshold you crossed. Early retirement remains the rare unicorn.
Third observation: Everyone has grey hair. Back when I was working, only two guys had gone grey—me and one other. Now I’ve got a shaved head under my baseball cap, a look I adopted after leaving the world of work.
So yeah, I’m still playing this game where I’m the youngest one here, where old is always just out of reach. But it’s getting close. And honestly? That’s perfectly fine.