When I returned to L.A., I had a simple goal in mind: to be a bad b— at my big age.
I am but a simple country man from Houston, and as a millennial who’s become accustomed to living through one crisis after another, I have come to embrace more measured expectations as I learn to navigate middle age amid the chaos of a declining empire.
As I see it, bad as things are all around me, Los Angeles offers a lovely view of a burning world and, on the matter of looking well at any and every age, hope in hopeless times.
I don’t mean in the way the entertainment industry has created unrealistic beauty standards and the pressure to present as youthful. Much as I appreciate the fine work being done by various medical and cosmetic professionals across the metropolitan area — especially those who I’ve seen advertise their podcasts on Sunset — I tend to find this hope in more modest places as of late.
Mostly, on my walks through Koreatown in the early hours of the morning.
I love running, but after experiencing sciatic nerve pain while in Texas, I run a lot less than I used to — one of many glaring examples of how aging is crueler than it needs to be.
I’ve come to appreciate the small joys of a pop-pop walk after lifting, before tripping into my days of slinging words to make the rent.
Though I do appreciate the sight of the fit-focused runners along the way, the real highlight for me is the well-dressed older Korean men I come across as I make my morning rounds.
Oftentimes, it’s just men in well-tailored pants and tops, which tends to give me vibrancy, depending on which block I’m on. My favorite example was this one man, who, by the looks of his face and graying hair, must have been in his late 50s at least, walking down 6th and Serrano in some pants that screamed André 3000. It was 7:45 in the morning, and here he was, just pacing down the block with that s— on.
It’s not like there aren’t stylish older people in other cities, but there is a level of comfort that can only be enjoyed in the kind of climate found in Southern California, especially during summer months.
I never thought getting older meant becoming boring, and I love finding little visual reminders like that to begin my day.
Of course, the incredibly hot elder statesmen I see along my trails provides a boost too.
This would include the various UPS and FedEx drivers moving packages near me. The men at my usual hiking spots: the Culver City Stairs and, yes, at Runyon Canyon. I’m usually in my own world when I’m moving about, but there are so many different types of beauty to be found in Los Angeles, and I would be wasting the money I put into my contact lenses by not noticing.
Not to ogle, but to appreciate all the subtle reminders of why I came back to LA.
I had been needing these reminders that life after a certain age still holds promise; that my body and appearance could be sources of joy, rather than dread; that aging is to be celebrated outwardly as much as inwardly.
In my mid-30s, the ugly realities about the fragility of life had already begun to haunt me. I had lost both an uncle and a close friend to cancer. The weight of grief had already started to drag me down, but when my mom was diagnosed with cancer in March of 2023 and, six months later, my world as I knew it was over.
My favorite person in the world was gone.
When I turned 40, only a couple of months after her passing, I was no longer excited about the future.
I had very little interest in anything besides getting through the day.
I didn’t want to lift. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to hike. I didn’t want to walk.
The L.A. sun, which I had hoped to show my mom firsthand before everything changed, was something I no longer sought out but actively hid from.
I had heard losing a parent changes you, and it had, only in ways my mom would not want for me.
My views on aging had soured.
I had never ignored my mortality, but watching so many people I love have their lives stolen by disease, on top of seeing so many headlines in recent years of so many famous Black men dying in their 50s, sparked a new worry.
The grays in my goatee — no doubt sparked by the agony of losing my mom — and the wrinkles that started to show in my aging face, now caused concern that perhaps my time would be shortened too. It was only a matter of when.
This was not the feeling I returned to L.A. for. This was not the experience I expected at this stage of my life.
My first glimpse into how good aging could look was at 18, in 2002, when, as one of the recipients of the Taylor Michaels Scholarship from the Magic Johnson Foundation, I was flown out with other “inner-city” kids from across the country to take part in a week full of conferences and charitable events.
Although you quickly learn how little there is to the real L.A. when staying at a hotel minutes from LAX, I was still exposed to a bevy of fabulous, older, thriving Black people who made older life look exciting as they drove over to speak and engage with us. When we were brought out to parts of the real city like Ladera Heights, Inglewood and Watts, I saw similar glowing examples spanning class levels. It wasn’t just fancy Black people looking good but everyday people — particularly men who reminded me of my dad, who, despite his faults, has kept an active lifestyle and has the physicality to show for it.
I never forgot that visual.
So when I first moved to Los Angeles, the same day as former President Obama’s first inauguration, I was keen about how I wanted my body to look. I had stretched out and thinned out, but I hadn’t toned, so I was heavy into the gym and running a lot in Hancock Park and the surrounding areas after moving nearby.
People noticed the difference, and I enjoyed the attention, but when I fell off, it was quickly highlighted.
One of my favorite things in life was waiting for my mom to greet me in baggage claim whenever I flew back home to visit. Near the end of my first stint in L.A., with a gorgeous smile on her face, she said after hugging me ever so tightly, “You were getting buff the last time I saw you … not now.”
She wasn’t normally so shady, which made it all the funnier to both of us.
I reminded her of that when I came back to L.A. in 2021, after years of living in New York and spending several peak-pandemic months back in my hometown, feeling more secure and prepared for what lay ahead of me.
A friend of mine referred me to her trainer, Ryan, and when he asked me what my goals were, I answered that I wanted the male equivalent of a specific R&B singer’s breast implants. He needed a moment to process that but told me I was funny. After that, I added that as much as I’m driven by vanity, I needed to feel more in control of my own body.
I wasn’t chasing an unattainable body standard; I was ready to settle for the grand prize of substantially less body dysmorphia.
I wanted to prove, perhaps far too late in life, that I needn’t ever stick my fingers down my throat again when feeling too low and could simply embrace this body as it is. Working out with Ryan helped with that and subsequently allowed me to develop more useful habits to deal with stress, anxiety and other tensions. It was a good run, but it ended shortly before the start of 2023, the year I lost my mother and the worst year of my life.
It was some time in the spring of this year that I started to take walks again. And by early summer, I even started to run again without my knees or back going snap, crackle, pop.
I continue to struggle with loss, but now, a little more than a year later, I am finding my way to the reasons I came back to L.A. I have started to recapture a feeling I first developed two decades ago: No matter how much older I get, life still has so much promise and potential.
Some habits are hard to let go of. I want this waist back in formation, so I battle with my late mother’s sweet tooth, which I seem to have inherited. It frequently takes me to Fleurs et Sel, a Black woman-owned bakery on West Adams whose pastries and cookies remind me of her — no easy feat. I have joked with the owner that I hope I don’t get diabetes for seeking so many emotional-support cookies, but even there, when I wait in line to get inside, I spot an older man who doesn’t look like what he’s probably been through.
Hopefully, someone spots a graying version of me someday and thinks the same.
Michael Arceneaux is the New York Times bestselling author of “I Can’t Jesus, I Don’t Want To Die Poor,” and his latest, “I Finally Found Some Jordans.”
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