Visitations

Every now and then, the years catch up with me.

I don’t know how my own age is perceived by the rest of the world (and am not sure that I want to know), but in my own mind, I remain only a few years out of college, a Young Turk and full of prospects and all that. My mind can be an amazingly strange place, some times.

Oh, I know that among my friends from that era, I see increasing signs of the passage of years — crows feet here, graying hair there. I try to ignore those bits when I see them in my own mirror, which, given the convolutions of my mind (and that fact I usually have a book in my hand when in the bathroom) is not too difficult.

And then, sometimes, reality just slaps me in the face.

An old college bud, Dave N., visited us yesterday. He’s on a trip about the western US, looking for someplace to settle down whilst he changes careers (the demand for philosophy teachers being a bit low right at the moment).

It turned out he was in the Denver area this weekend, so we forced him to come over in the face of my folks being there and various other friends. He was up to the challenge, and seemed to have a good time (and, it turned out, was not actually staying over). I wouldn’t mind at all if he decided to set up shop here in town, especially since, ahem, he’s another gaming sort (and, in fact, has the dubious distinction to be the only person other than myself to have run a campaign using my own homebrew rules).

But the slap in the face bit? Jeez, he’s changed. He bikes a lot, so he has that leanness about him that compulsive regular bike riders have. But he’s … um … how to put it politely …

Well, his hair has thinned considerably in the 15-odd years since I last saw him.

Granted, he’s not alone on that, and mine own has waxed and waned, mostly waned, in the intervening years. But if you have a mental image of a guy with fairly thick blond hair, and he pulls up and gets out of his SUV with, ah, very little there … it’s jarring.

And, jeez, it might actually drive me to, um, look at myself in the mirror, too, and compare myself to some graduate-era shots.

Or, well, maybe not …