Old Guys

I dig old guys.

And not just because I am one of them.

If I am watching a Red Sox game and the camera focuses in on two older guys sitting together in the stands, I experience immediate empathy and respect.

There is a definite gravitas that comes along with surviving 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 years of life. 

People of those ages have experienced marriage and birth and death and jobs and disasters and triumphs, heartbreaking loss, sky high joy, and just plain old every day living.

You can see it in their body language. No panic, just composure. Once you have seen it all, once you realize your dreams probably will not come true and that awareness won't kill you, you are left with a quiet peace, a resigned acceptance that this is your life, your friends, your family and maybe it ain't all that bad.

You almost feel bulletproof in a weird way, even though you know The Reaper knows where you live and has already purchased his Amtrak ticket to your grand finale.

When I am out and about and I see guys my age with beer guts and white beards and unruly long hair, I smile inwardly. They are who they are and they don't give a shit what anyone else thinks about them. They move about effortlessly, as comfortable in their own skin as any man in an Italian, custom made suit.

I have a sneaking suspicion that when I am done with this whole work thing, the hair is going to get unruly and I might proudly sport white facial decoration. I already have the fucking beer gut, although I stubbornly adhere to the belief that I can eradicate it.

Skinny old guys are the best, though. You know the ones I am talking about - grizzled faces, cheap jeans, scuffed and dirty work boots, t-shirts with holes in them, smoking a cigarette. There is something triumphant about making it to old age and remaining skinny. A major life victory.

I am not shitting on youth. Youth rocks. The energy, the easy laughter, the natural insanity, no worries - that is a magical place to be and everyone should enjoy it.

But you haven't earned a lot of respect. You haven't been shocked by sudden misfortune, or dealt with your own shortcomings, or succeeded or failed, or succeeded and failed. You haven't loved, you haven't been betrayed, you haven't dealt with frightening illness. Loss.

Old guys have taken life on straight-up and survived it all. It didn't go the way they wanted it to, they had to make adjustments, they built emotional walls for protection, but they were not defeated.

They kept moving.

Now their smiles project a sense of knowing, a wisdom that must be respected.