Alex Balk

As a man grows older.

The men in my family, despite an apparent genetic predisposition to bad behavior, all tend to live well into their nineties. It’s always seemed impossibly distant to me, but, walking outside this morning, I saw an elderly gentleman in a suit shuffling slowly down the street. His white hair was incredibly well groomed, and while he wasn’t moving with any degree of celerity, he wasn’t in any obvious way disabled either. And it suddenly occurred to me, that may be you some day. Friends and loved ones will die, the victories and defeats that seem so important now will burn off and fade away, and all that will remain is the basic human urge to keep going for another hour, another week, another year. In the end, we’re all just a cluster of cells propelled by some life force we can neither control nor understand. Then I snapped out of it. I mean, Jesus, I don’t wear suits now. You think I’m gonna be bothered with that shit when I’m 93?