This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Editor's note • Yesterday was Robert Kirby's birthday. He missed his deadline and we still can't find him. Today's column is a reprint.

That's what you should be reading right now if celebrating my waning youth hadn't been rudely interrupted by a reminder of my imminent death.

When I sat down to choose a column to reprint today, a box tipped over in my office. A scroll of paper fell on the floor. I picked it up. I shouldn't have.

It was a photo of some vaguely familiar dimwit posing with "Drag Race" reality show host RuPaul and televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker Messner. I can't remember the year. Hell, I wasn't entirely certain that was me between them.

I do remember meeting RuPaul and Tammy Faye at some point. When I introduced myself, RuPaul clutched my hand and practically pleaded with me to get help exfoliating and moisturizing.

Whatever Tammy said to me is lost to time. I vaguely remember liking her in person. I mostly remember wondering why her eyelids didn't stick together when she blinked.

But it's the guy in the middle who worries me the most. If that is me — and I'm not saying it is — I don't recall ever looking through that face, or having hair that dark.

When shown the picture, my wife confirmed that it's me at the Sundance Film Festival 15 years ago. I have no idea how I got from that face to the one I'm currently wearing in such a short amount of time.

Maybe it's because I'm not a guy who studies his face a lot. I'd rather look at something uplifting and pleasant, like my wife's face. In fact, I look at her way more than I look at myself. I prefer it that way.

The only care I give my face is to trim my mustache when it gets to the point that everything I eat has a Shredded Wheat texture to it. That and trim my eyebrows with a pocket knife in church when I get bored.

When my mustache started to go gray, someone suggested I hold on to youth by coloring it. I was gonna, but my wife said no. I would have been the only guy in Utah with a neon blue mustache.

And then one day, my mustache was completely white and my hair wasn't far behind. I went from that the guy between RuPaul and Tammy Faye to the badly treated walrus I see in the mirror every morning. One day, I just woke up like that.

Everyone ages. Some more gracefully than others. For some people who monitor signs of aging — mostly women — the first sign of inexorable aging is their first wrinkle.

I got my first wrinkle sometime around the 10th grade. One day, I noticed a ragged seam along my left jaw. I showed Mom. She said wrinkles happened naturally. The mark was actually a scar from getting bashed in the face the year before. Actual wrinkles wouldn't start until I had a kid of my own.

No matter how closely it's monitored, geezerhood sneaks up on us. It isn't the number of birthdays so much as what happens between them.

There's no way old people like me can ever convince young people that it happens faster than they think. One day you'll be looking out of your face and see someone you barely recognize. That'll be you.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby.