“At 50, everyone has the face he deserves,” wrote George Orwell. As I’m way past that milestone, I have, more or less, accepted that there isn’t much that can be done in that department. Time takes its toll as one year passes to the next. But on some mornings, vanity would overcome good sense.

Looking at the reflection in the mirror, I would scan in my face for what plastic surgeons irreverently called the “holy trinity”: changes that make a person look older. First are the wrinkles and age spots. Second is the shrinking of the fat layers in the cheeks which give one a sad, deflated look. And third is the overall drooping and sagging. On those mornings, I would try to push those undeniable signs of creeping decrepitude off my mind as fast as I checked those boxes.