I was startled — a better descriptor might be “shaken” — one morning this past week after opening an email newsletter which included a picture of a sports figure I know.
“Mercy,” I exclaimed aloud. “How’d he get so old?”
It wasn’t a totally unattractive picture. The photo showed Ted Leonsis, a former AOL executive and the wealthy owner of several professional sports teams, including hockey’s Washington Capitals, the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. Ted was shown smiling and wearing his Mystics 2019 championship ring — which probably paired well with his Stanley Cup ring, earned with the Capitals’ National Hockey League title in 2018.
The ring looked great. Leonsis? Well, not so hot. Smiling, distinctive, and a champion — but much more frail and much grayer that I remembered him. Older. Definitely older.
As a hockey fan and an admirer of great sports team owners — Leonsis is among the best — his is a trajectory I’ve followed for years. I’ve read dozens of stories about him and seen his likeness many, many times, but until this one, every single picture I’ve seen of Leonsis shows a more robust, beefier man who seemed more sturdy and less…well, old.
I realize it’s just a picture, and Leonsis is “just” 63. But all of a sudden he’s looking ancient.
“Old” may be a state of mind; still, we all know it’s also a number that only gets higher, never lower. My own number — my age — will be flipping one higher next week as I celebrate another birthday. Being another year older doesn’t bother me. Being “old” does. Looking “old” does. Feeling “old” is the worst.
When I was a child, the oldest I could ever imagine myself was 37 – probably because, having been born in 1963, that’s how old I’d turn in the year 2000. For an 8-year-old in 1971, anything past the year 2000 was extraordinarily difficult to fathom. Then, being 37 years old seemed ancient.
In the blink of an eye, though, I’ll be as old as Leonsis.
Time doesn’t just fly, it steamrolls. Life’s a beach, sunny and warm, with flip flops and fruity drinks containing miniature umbrellas, and then a tsunami comes and all of a sudden you’re over the hill and under water, gasping for air and going down stairs sideways. And then you begin to not recognize yourself in photographs taken of you.
We had a “time flies” moment this weekend. Our older son Zach – he’ll be 28 soon (pause while I come to grips with that) — and his wife Sarah popped over. When they walked in the door, my wife of 30 years, Lee Ann, and I happened to have been watching the comedy film “What About Bob” — a truly funny movie which makes light of our tendencies toward self-indulgent neuroses. I’d not seen it in years.
In the movie, Siggy — the young son of the antagonist, the high-strung psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin — is an anxious, angst-ridden child who, among other things, pushes back against his dad’s attempts to teach him how to dive into a lake off the family pier. Siggy likes to wear black and obsesses a bit about death. So when one of Dr. Marvin’s new patients, the uber-neurotic Bob Wiley — portrayed to perfection by actor Bill Murray — follows the family up to New Hampshire on a vacation and ends up being responsible for Siggy’s first dive, chaos ensues.
Bob eventually ends up spending the night with the Marvin family, sleeping in a spare bed in Siggy’s room. In one poignant scene, the phobic boy and the obsessive-compulsive man-child talk about their fears.
“Are you afraid of death?” Siggy asks Bob.
“Yeah,” Bob admits.
“Me too,” says Siggy. “There’s no way out of it. You’re going to die. I’m going to die. It’s going to happen. What difference does it make if it’s tomorrow or 80 years from now?”
A pause, and then Siggy comes to a realization.
“Do you know how fast time goes? I was 6, like, yesterday.” He pauses, and you can sense the light bulb going off in his head. “I’m going to die. You are doing to die. What else is there to be afraid of?”
The lesson: nothing. Any other fears — age being one of them — are unfounded.
Our own son and his wife enjoyed watching part of the film — they weren’t familiar with it — while we sat together.
One of them asked: “How old is this movie?”
Lee Ann said she thought it was released about 15 years ago.
I had news for them all. She was half-right: “What About Bob” came out in 1991.
It’s a year older than Zach.
Time…it flies for Ted Leonsis and the rest of us.
What else is there to be afraid of?