I Will Be My Brother's Keeper

I’m writing about somebody who described his day (yesterday) as ishy.  He was asked if he qualified for The Discount.  Why he didn’t explode on the spot, I don’t know.  I saw the person who asked him.  She was on a fast slide down the other side of Over The Hill.  He might have taken it in stride but I know this has happened to him now and then for many years now.  Too often and too early.  Since his thirties, when his peers were often described as “kids”.   He has spent time looking in the mirror for signs of premature aging and not found them.  He says that out-of-town, people underestimate his age.  But around here, he says, if you have any youthful vigor in you there are expectations you will be a hell raiser, with a hell raiser’s demeanor and body language.  I can feel his pain.  He's an artist.  An artist is usually several years behind other people, in terms of life’s experiences and rites of passage.  When somebody says you’re old, you get a sinking feeling.  For at that point you are literally sinking.  Forget that bullshit about you’re as old as you feel.  Sometimes you’re as old as other people say you are, even when you’re not.