I’ve had enough of these milestones in my life to make this one seem ordinary, but it doesn’t. Forty five seems somehow RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE for some reason, a marker on the road between birth and… the Other Thing.

I got some lovely presents from friends and family, and Andrea prepared a fabulous dinner table and a lovely meal for the occasion. There were messages galore on Facebook and e-mail. I felt wonderfully beloved and celebrated. And a little pensive.

As 45 comes and goes, I grow more and more afraid of wasting time.

I just know that I’m filled with a strange sense of elation and ‘Old’-ness at 45. Old-ness because my recovery time from everything is longer than it used to be, and I realize I’ve reached an age that seemed like aeons ahead when I was a kid. It struck me this morning that the teachers we regarded as ancient old dinosaurs at school were probably this age when they taught us.

But also elated because I’ve never felt more creative and alive. I find myself sketching and writing and blogging more than I ever have. And that has become my way of staring in the face of The Other Thing, as it glares at me across the years between us – across the distance that is now, surely, shorter than the one I have traveled to get here.