The story of a lonesome ol'Jerome

*Gwyn's POV*

I was definitely not a morning person, and I definitely did not need to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way into the shower. Knowing it was a bad idea, I stopped to look anyway. I liked my eyes, a light grey-green. I liked my tattoos. And, eh, that was it. The rest was pretty upsetting. You’d think that after over three decades, I’d have gotten used to it, but no- every time I looked in a mirror, I felt an acute sense of disappointment I wasn’t expecting. I leaned in and blinked a few times. My only wrinkles were still the scowl lines I’d had since I was a teenager. Weird. I stopped looking at my face and inevitably my attention was drawn to the rolls. I looked like some kind of overfed, puffy ogre. I looked down at my saggy belly and contemplated it for a moment before shaking it off and going to shower.

I went through the tedious ritual of shaving all the assorted bits and pieces. I was a little nervous, but excited. I was going to go see BVB on Saturday for the first time, it should be cool. I had been so busy with work, I hadn’t gotten time off for a concert in ages. I was just a little worried, as, I mean, frankly, I was fucking old. A lot of BVB fans were half my age, or less. As much as BVB were all about acceptance, it only took one bad apple to turn a whole barrel to shit. I was a firm believer that the nature of humanity was not necessarily a good one, and I think it’s easy for people to fear what they perceive as different. Just like Yoda said, fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. Frankly, I wanted to avoid any suffering on my part.

But then I remembered, years back, when I was in high school, going to see Marilyn Manson, back in the mid-90s, and there had been plenty of “adults,” and I had never been an asshole to any of them. I hadn't thought it was weird at all, I had thought it was awesome that they were open-minded. I reminded myself to try harder not be so judgmental of people because of age.

Still, it would have been cool if I weren’t going to go by myself. Fucking oh well. My co-workers didn’t exactly share in all my musical interests. They only saw part of me. I wore a heavy mask every day, it was part of the price I paid for wanting to work in the veterinary field.

Notes