54

I am now almost exactly 3 times as old as my oldest daughter. Here's what it's like to be 54 years old. It feels pretty much exactly like being 53 years old. Hmmm, that probably doesn't help much. I guess you have to split it into physical and mental.

Physically, I still feel reasonably strong and fit and energetic. Stuff hurts pretty much every day. I have a chronically sore left shoulder which hurts, according to my doctor, because I'm not dead yet. I can ease it with exercises and it doesn't stop me from doing anything, but it's annoying. And typical for someone my age. It always makes me chuckle when kids say they feel old because they woke up and their neck or their back hurts. See how you feel when that happens for about 2000 days in a row.

Mentally, the only even halfway bad thing I can think of is that I have too many stray facts stuck in my head, like what kind of Mike and Ike's my students like. It's like my brain still knows where to go but there are more obstacles to getting there.

Like any milestone, a birthday makes you reflect and think ahead. I was discussing what I want to be when I grow up with my younger daughter (she thinks it's funny but I think she's kind of used to hearing me say stuff like that), and she thinks I should be the old guy whose house kids are afraid to go near on Halloween.

My birthday itself was pretty uneventful. I went out to a wonderful dinner with friends which was a lot of fun, and that was about it. I'm impossible to buy presents for because I don't want anything, so you have to find something I'd never thought of. That gets harder at this age because every year I've had more time to think of things.

And now we've moved on to where my daughter is now 18. Time doesn't fly (and for you catching typos at the last second fans, Tim doesn't fly either); it feels like it's been a long time and a lot has happened since she was born. But still, something about birthdays makes you compress time somehow and in ways 18 years seems really short. Not 54 years though. That's a long time.