Elderly

I seem to have grown old over the last year, and especially the last six months. Most notably over this long period of illness, which yet persists. I look in the mirror and see new vertical wrinkles on my forehead crisscrossing with the old horizontal ones. Looks like a map of the canals of Mars. Dark racoon-like circles beneath my eyes. I go for a coffee in the morning, which, actually, has turned to tea or some other substitute given my stomach's newfound inability to tolerate coffee, chat a moment with the Barista, and then say, 'I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name.' 'That's okay,' she says, 'you're pretty old.' At a later point in the day, I am explaining the problem I'm having with my stomach to another young woman and she says, 'That's okay. You're pretty old.' I seem to have crossed a dividing line between seasoned and elderly. And I suspect there's no going back.