Reading his emails from last week I can certainly, reluctantly,
guess. Looking back, I think he was projecting his past experience onto what he presumed my situation was. I appreciated the advice but felt he was overreacting/reading too much into it.
I smiled then because it was downright fatherly of him, despite him being fourteen years younger than me. Thankfully, although we had a bit of back and forth over a client, it was resolved amicably. As far as I can tell.
Life makes some people's souls old far too quickly.