I am old now.

I turn 55 this week. It’s a good, solid palindromic number, the kind of number a nation could base a speed limit around. Despite the pleasing aesthetics, however, each passing year carries a strangeness, even a whiff of slight embarrassment at my ever-advancing age; one almost wishes to apologize for subjecting others to the indignity of having to deal with somebody so old.

Of course, 55 is not old by modern standards. Many of you reading are even older than me, if such a thing is possible. And, I am told, such a thing is possible, although somewhat unimaginable.

It’s not hard to get this old. You simply have to keep breathing. The effort required is minimal and produces a predictable result. Yet, the internal workings don’t keep up with the external mechanics. One expects to feel differently as one ages. I’m not exactly sure how. Wiser, maybe? More self-assured? Perhaps, to quote the philosopher Constanza, I expected to feel more “master of my own domain.”

I have not mastered my domain. Worse, I remain clueless even to its contours. The confusion I felt as a younger man has not abated. Few of us really know ourselves. Fewer still accept ourselves. Age ameliorates that somewhat, but not entirely. To look in the mirror each day is to spot somebody whose flaws glare ever-brighter. Any wisdom I’ve gained expresses itself as patience with others rather than for myself.

That old saying about youth being wasted on the young is only partially true. Age rubs away the self-assurance of youth. I know less than I did at 25, and waaaay less than I did at 15. Yes, we would comport ourselves differently if we could go back in time knowing what we know now, but that misses the point of being young. The only way we arrive at the “mistakes were made” portion of our lives is to make those mistakes in the first place.

I keep making mistakes. Bad decisions, intemperate remarks, missteps of every type. If I make fewer of them than I did as a younger person, perhaps it’s not because because I have learned from my previous errors, but because I take fewer chances? I hope not, but I suspect that’s the case. We all tendency to slow down as we age, whether we mean to or not. I definitely mean to.

Younger people throw themselves at the world in every direction. What about this? And that? And the other thing over there? All worthy of exploration, even though we end up discarding most of it. As we should. That’s the whole point of youth.

To be older is to take comfort in ritual. In my case, the morning cup of tea, the afternoon nap, the evening couch sprawl. But ritual can calcify into inflexibility. I don’t want my charming eccentricities to turn into curmudgeonliness. For heaven’s sake, one never wants to become crotchety.

At 55, I remain excited to explore, but my adventures these days tend to involve fewer trips to the emergency room. What excites me about the world now aren’t its sensory pleasures but its quieter mysteries. The monarch butterflies in the field behind my house stopping for a nibble of milkweed on their annual commute to Mexico. The couple in their 90’s sharing lunch at the local sandwich shop and the conversation between them I could not hear, no matter how intently I eavesdropped. I’m enamored with creativity and process and craftmanship. And snacks.

I imagine my journey mirrors your own, whether you’re 85 or 35. As a parent, we watch our kids hit those vaunted “development milestones,” but those milestones never end. We keep hitting them, one after the other. This feeling of being untethered from one’s chronological age, that’s part of it, too. That I’m still healthy enough to feel misaligned with the number assigned to my years feels like a good thing, not a bad one, and one I plan on holding onto as long as possible.

If I have a wish for myself as I approach this birthday, it’s only that I find some small good to do this year. That’s all. To live in such a way that my 56^th year means something positive for somebody else. If I had a wish for the world this year, I suppose it’s the same.

How did we all get so lucky that we’re all here at the same time? I feel luckier to have some of you than others, but still, here we all are. This whole ridiculous mass of us on this blue planet doing the best we can without any idea of what it is we’re meant to do. Which is, frankly, hilarious. That’s another one of those quiet mysteries I continue to live – whatever it is within us that produces joy. We’re lucky to have it and, for all of our bitching and moaning, we’re lucky to have each other.