What it is like to be old

You asked me what it was like to be old. Maybe you thought you were kidding, but you were not. I can tell you this much. You know more stuff. You have had more time to learn stuff, and it is easy to know a lot of shit about a lot of things. You have more stories. More time equals more good stories. Period. Everything hurts more. Things hurt at your age, but more things hurt when you are old, and they hurt for longer. You have slightly fewer childhood memories-you forget a few, and memories of when when I was your age feel like childhood memories. I don't really know that much about the person who did those things i have memories of. I have some idea of his motivations. Still, he made so many decisions, good and bad, that I would not have made if I were there back then. I was not there, some other, earlier version of me was there. You, dear, are an early version of somebody else, and you will come to know that person. That person will appreciate your clothes, your sense of humor, your gift for friendship. She will be glad you had so much fun and realize that you should be so much easier on yourself. Or maybe she will appreciate you for your heart. A person changes You will change, but it is not like a marathon or even continental drift, it is instead like a frog race, where you start at the center, like every other frog in the race, and jump outward from it. You could end up anywhere by then end of it. Prison cells, brain transplants, transmogrification, celestial servitude, dens of iniquity, piss stained underpants. You make different kinds of plans. Time means less to you. You have seen enough change that it is fun to compare now to then, but most people are not inclined to listen to your stories unless you frame them right. The imaginary futures you thought might happen as a child have not happened. Emotions do not spike with the same amplitude, but have a serious and studied intensity, at my age. You get used to not being as attractive as you once were. Most people get funnier. If you have children, you start living two ages in parallel-the result of this being that you can no longer go out at night but you get to play with crayons. If you have kids, there is much more to worry about, otherwise, there is usually less. There are moments you would like to go back to. There are things you wish you could find words for.

For you

Let me make this abundantly clear. It is only through cold, hard determination that our Triassic ancestors survived long enough to reproduce. Natural selection does not favor pessimism, or even irony. Burrows need to be dug, prey need to be killed and eaten, eggs should be hidden under a layer of sand and guarded ferociously. None of these things comes without brute understanding that things could be a hell of a lot worse, and could turn bad at any moment. Smell the air. It is the mammal sense. Is it an an enemy or a mate- that smell that lingers over the nostrils and summons us into the moonlit forest surrounded by land crocodiles. Time will tell. Time will tell.