The Face of Aging

My last stop in NYC during my visit this past week was at the memorial service for a long-time friend and colleague. His name was Peter and I first met him in perhaps 1981, so 44 years ago. He died at age 84, so I knew him for over half his life and over 61% of my life. If I think of my adult life (post college), I would need to say I knew him for 90% of my life. That’s a long time no matter how you slice it.

I recall that when he joined our bank he was featured in some recruiting brochure as a tennis player (we were trying to paint a refined picture of life as an officer in our firm). He and his wife Gretchen were photographed in their tennis whites, playing at his Lawrence Beach Club grass courts in what can only be described as regal fashion. Even in those days he had a shock of white hair, though back then it was kept pretty high and tight by comparison to his later years. Peter had supposedly been a pretty bulky guy in his youth and at 6’4” in height, very comparably sized to me given that he once told me he peaked at 300 pounds. I’m not sure when, how or why, but he managed to lose the weight and kept losing it until he was, in a word, lanky. I never knew him any other way, but if I ever thought the story of his being heavy was untrue, that idea was removed once I had the chance to dine with him. Peter was unusual at best and weird at worst, depending on how tolerant you were towards people who were random thinkers. At that first dinner with Peter, I watched him talk extensively to his food. He was negotiating with each and every piece of it as to whether he would or should eat it. Rather than engage in polite conversation with the other attendees of that dinner, Peter really did speak only to his food and when I asked him about it he said it was something he had to do to control his appetite.

There was very little normal about Peter. His look and his manner were always…unusual. His lanky frame, overly tanned face (he was an insatiable sun worshiper), bony facial and bodily features (including a significant proboscis) simply stood out. Despite his habit of running in Central Park every day, he acquired a hunched posture that when combined with his preference for urban black clothing of the casual sort, he looked like a character, plain and simple. In fact, if I ever needed to describe him to someone, I would usually suggest that they imagine what Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s imagination might look like and that would be Peter. As Peter aged, he let his white hair get longer and more unkempt. It gave him a decidedly inexplicable and unsettling look about him and almost (I said, almost) made you ignore his extreme facial expressions. When he laughed, he laughed big. But when he was serious, which seemed increasingly like his natural state of being, he was scary looking. The darkened skin, hollow eyes, harsh features, all topped by this wild white hair that almost looked fiery, was never mistaken as anything other than that of an aging man. What was harder to tell was whether there was good or mal intent in that face. Those of us who knew him knew that the good greatly outweighed the bad, but to strangers, the seemingly obvious conclusion was never clear and usually one of caution.

Peter, at 84, was 13 years my senior and yet, he was more or less a business peer of mine. That was not unusual based on my career trajectory. I started with an MBA at 22, became an officer at 24, a Vice President at 26, a Senior Vice President at 31, a Managing Director at 32, a Partner (in the initial class of partners) at 33, an EVP at 34, a CEO of a subsidiary bank at 36 and a member of the Management Committee at 42. I was pretty much 12 to 15 years younger than my peers at the bank, almost every step of the way. That means that I always looked younger, especially thanks to my chubby cheeks and fair hair and features. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of better looking guys, but I simply always looked younger than most for some reason.

This is not the first time I have noticed it, but at this memorial service gathering, many of the people that Peter and I worked with through the seventies, eighties and nineties came to pay their respects. This included a few of our peers, but also many who reported to us both, given that I succeeded Peter in his last senior role at our bank. What I noted was that almost all of these people, who I had mostly not seen for many years, looked much older than I thought they would. I’m not oblivious to the aging process, but it always seems to surprise me when I see people who age so much more than average. I think I’m trying to be some combination of kind and show modesty at the same time with that statement. What I mean to say is that while I can see most or all of my own wrinkles and age spots, I still believe that I am aging much less noticeably than most my age. Every once in a while I see someone who has aged less than me, to be sure, but I would suggest that 85+% age faster or further than I do. I might think I was seeing myself with rose-colored glasses except for easily recognizing those few who have aged less. That suggests to me some degree of objectivity, but who knows.

Kim and I talk about the elements of aging and I think we agree that skin quality and hair quality are big factors. Hair coloring makes a difference, but keeping most of one’s hair is more the issue than not. Thick hair is a big factor in looking less aged, no matter the color or length. As for skin, its also all about thickness. Thin and somewhat translucent skin is always a dead giveaway of aging. Paleness rather than tanned skin adds to that. As I’ve explained, Peter was plenty tanned and had a full head of thick hair, so those cannot be the only attributes. Generally, things like high cheekbones and sharp facial features mean younger and healthier, but there is a fine line between sharpness and angularity. Peter’s lean and hungry look was more of a Crassus look than a triathlete look. Given his daily running, I’m not sure why that was, but it was.

I also believe that state of mind is a crucial part of both aging and the appearance of aging. If you are young at heart, I believe you look younger. But the strange thing is that Peter was an urban hipster to the core. After banking, he worked in the film business, keeping an office in TriBeCa in the same building as Robert DeNiro. He never wore suits and was mostly to be found in jeans, so it is only fair to say that between all that and his doing stand-up comedy for a number of years, he was young at heart to be sure.

But none of that changed the reality that Peter always looked his age or older. So, so much for all those criteria. I think where this leaves me is that the face of aging is a random condition that none of us are able to control too much. We age how we age and we look to others how we look. It shouldn’t matter, but I can’t help but feel that feeling good about the world and therefore about yourself and how you fit into that world have more to do with the face of aging than anything else.