I’D SEEN THE WORD ON SOCIAL MEDIA. MID. THE SHOW WAS MID. THE song was mid. The rapper was mid. So many shows, songs, rappers, and more are unknown to me, trees in the now-bewildering wilderness of pop culture that the young navigate effortlessly.
But I rapidly deduced that mid is not good. Mid is mediocre. Middle of the road. Meh.
And then I realized—I am mid.
The pandemic made my midness unavoidable. Until then, I could convince myself that I looked ten years younger than I was, and looking good is halfway to feeling good. But in the Age of the Mask, my face of denial was shrouded. Suddenly all I saw were eyes. Nothing I did to my visage or hair could perform a trompe l’oeil and camouflage how my age was now inscribed in the lines and wrinkles around my eyes, underlined emphatically by
