Getting Older.

The sad story of this monday is from the tunnels of subways, and particularly, from their stairs.  I'm an impatient type when I'm coming and going, and mostly, I get impatient about people a)  squeezing out the last few minutes of a conversation or text on their cell phone's while they descend the stairs and b) not walking straight forward on the sidewalk/not being conscious of those around them.

And today, the sad realization was of coming around the corner to go down the stairs and witnessing a bunch of older people coming up the stairs at me, literally holding onto the railing for what seemed to be their lives, as if they were in gale force wind or pushing back against incoming tides.  I mean, we're talking serious grimace-and-survive type faces here.  And I thought to myself, as I descended from the idiotic plane which is my mind, that shit, these people are really struggling to get up the stairs, all huffing and puffing and heaving and their veins are popping out in their necks, and their backs are sweaty and their feet are trembling and their socks are way too tight (like mine, mind you) and shit, I'm going to fucking be like that, and worse than that, it doesn't get better. There is no reprieve, and, as I bounded down the stairs behind what appeared to be a 10 year old, I saw that he was speedy, naturally speedy, because kids naturally want to run, and that I wouldn't have to wait behind someone's back, which is how I evaluate walking these days, whether I will have to wait, and the kid was the exact opposite of the aged warriors, and what was I?  On my way, that's what.  On my way.