The decrepit table

When I was little, a fifty-year-old was no different to me from a ninety-year-old, he was placed in a single large category that was called "old" without filters. In family gatherings there were only two tables: that of the young and that of the old. Now that I am inexorably preparing to sit down at the table of the decrepits, a reflection comes to mind. As a child, many seasoned people said to me: «Everyone is as old as they feel». That phrase had more or less the same effect on me today as young people who say to me: "Everyone has the gender they feel". At the time I thought to myself, as a simple little boy a bit in the clouds that I was, that: "It will be a way of saying among the elderly to console themselves for their old age". For me they were just old, in some cases they were musty people who wore red pants to feel younger.

Today, however, when I sit at the table of the worn out and I am still often in the clouds, the frequent use of the word fluid by the boys makes me think: «It will be a way of saying that they use the young to make someone who is not looking at them turn around». As I think so, I call myself sexist, before my daughter or anyone else does. So I think back to my grandfather who used to say: «It's not like you can understand everything! For that you'll have to wait until you're on the table of stone dead"

Andrea Gotico

NP Ottobre 2022