I’m fifty-six years old.
I don’t feel fifty-six.
In some ways, I feel four. In some ways, twenty-five. In some, forty-five. And alas, in at least a couple, seventy-five or eighty.
I haven’t had a hair on my head since I was twenty-five. Maybe this has something to do with it.
I’ve ranged in weight between 155 and 225 over the last 20 years. Today, I weigh 160. In spite of some back problems, I’m honestly in the best shape I’ve ever been.
My skin is soft and smooth.
I have a beard that’s dark, but flecked with white.
When people guess how old I am, they rarely guess older than forty-five.
In the last week:
- Someone I’ve known for over a decade told me she thought I was twenty years younger than she is. Which would make me forty-four. (And which would have made me thirty-two when I was forty-four.)
- Someone I’ve known for a month told me he thought I was his age (forty-two).
- Sometime I’ve known over a year was surprised to learn I’m not in my thirties.
I’m accustomed to reading as younger than I am. I always have.
In her nineties, my grandmother read as in her seventies. My eighty-four-year-old dad looked sixty-five five years ago. He looked seventy two years ago. Today? He looks seventy-five. Time is catching him.
One day, time surely will catch me.
Not yet, though, it seems. [ptui, ptui, ptui]