This is a portret of a man I became friends with when I worked in elderly care. Every week I visited him in is apartment to help him maintaining a clean home, but all he really wanted me to do was to sit down and talk with him. He told me all kinds of stories about his life while smoking a cigarette, that sparked my imagination. He experienced so much, had loads of adventures that still lighted a fire inside of him. I could feel it and relate a lot to his stories and way of thinking, as if he lived the same youth as I’m living now. Yet here he was, stuck in his house, filled with object containing memories. And stuck in his own body, unable to escape the tragedy of age and addiction. After a year or two it felt like I’ve not only got to know him in the presence, but also his younger self. As if I also became friends with someone my age, but from the past. It made me question where my life was leading. Am I bound to the same fate?
