Getting old

Age.

It has a way of creeping up on you and giving you the fright of your life when you least expect it.

I’m two years away from turning half a century.

I know the news will come as a shock to those in the newsroom who have known me to be 36 for well over a decade. And bless my colleagues’ heart for playing along all those years.

Although, if I recall correctly, there was one time, and no, not in band camp, that well-wishers at work surprised me with a “Happy 36th Birthday” streamer in the old lounge. Every one stuck to their roles splendidly and I, the consummate actor, went along without batting an eyelash.

Then a reporter, who is now an editor, turned to the person next to her and asked, within my earshot, “But I thought he was 36 last year?”

Alas, holding back the years, to quote a line from a Simply Red song that was released in 1985, has put a toll on my outward appearance.

Don’t get me wrong, I can still manage to fool someone into thinking that I’m younger if I stand under that miraculous light in our bathroom at the office, which, and I will swear by it, has the effect of shaving at least eight years, tops, off my biological age.

Although people might think me a pervert if I start accosting them to follow me to the bathroom so they can see how I looked eight years ago.

Hmm. Then again, I haven’t tried.

Oh, if I could turn back time, to quote a line from a Cher song that was released in 1989.

Had I known then what I know now, things would have been so different.

I mean, who would have thought that I would lose almost 100 pounds?

A decade ago, I could barely manage the steps inside the Capitol when I was a consultant for then Gov. Gwen Garcia.

During that period, my waistline was 45 inches, and I weighed well over 250 pounds. I also smoked two packs a day and drank every night. Now I’ve only held on to the latter. Don’t get me wrong. I had a blast back then. I partied almost every night, usually hung out with friends at this videoke joint near Chong Hua Hospital.

There was even a time I was an in-demand indie actor. I don’t mind saying that I was once a favorite of then up-and-coming director Jerrold Tarog, having starred in his first two films “Confessional” and “Mangatyanan.” Or maybe I wasn’t, but that’s not my point.

So why am I reminiscing about the past and bringing up a once-taboo subject?

A member of our jog and lechon group, A2Z Runners Club, told me that a friend who spotted the two of us together at the oval thought I was her father.