Decrepit

This marks my 600 post. Which reminds me that I’ve been doing this for a while. Which reminds me that I’m old.

But recently, I feel that I’ve become a bit younger. I was at getting a haircut the other day and the stylist said “You must look really young without the beard.” Similarly during my thousand introductions I’ve given over the last fortnight I’ve been told a couple times that I look too young to be a doctor. The trick of course is that I don’t have any smile lines on my face. Just stop smiling and you’ll look young and miserable.

So if I don’t look old, why do I feel so old? In another of my thousand introductions, this time at work, I got this response. “Wait, you went to BYU, so you’re Mormon right? And you’re single?” My problem isn’t that I’m 28, my problem is that I’m single.

Which is of course the problem. Except for the occasional Doogie Howser, my coworkers are at most 2 years younger than me (darn mission) and generally older than me. So it’s only when I’m thrown into the YSA pool that I become old and wrinkly, metaphorically.

But even that is different these days. These days I’m missing my old pool. In Ohio, I was a big fish in a small pond. In Arizona, I’m a little fish in a big ocean. But in Ohio I was also an old fish, with only a handful of more senior fish, and constant influxes (influces?) of 18 year old fish. In Arizona there are too many fish to count, so even if I were an old fish, I don’t think I’d know it. But I’m pretty sure I’m not one any more. I’m not a young fish, but I’m a middle-aged fish.

So if you’re old, move to Arizona. Unless you want to be old, then grow a beard. And smile more.