You say it's your birthday ...
For most people, the Fourth of July means unbearable heat, overcooked burgers and dogs, and fireworks either launched illicitly within the city limits or seen from a distance at a municipal show. In my house, it means all that, and birthdays. The Old Daughter on the Fourth, mine on the day after. She's 8. I'm a whole lot older.

My perspective on age is skewed in part by the fact that I watched sports for a living for such a long time. I became conditioned to believing that 34 is old, very old. Professional athletes who are 34 are In the Twilight of Their Careers, to use one particular overused lyrical sportswriter phrase. My perspective on age is also skewed in part by the fact that when my mom was 34, I was in college. So I'm not really sure what to think. Some days, I feel very, very old. Some days, not so much.


For many years, I was the youngest in any group of people. Friends, co-workers, whatever; I was always the youngest. Now, I work with people who were born in the mid-'70s. I will likely have a supervisor who is younger than me some day soon. I wonder how I'll handle that; I always wondered how the people I supervised in past jobs handled it. I don't even know why it matters to me.


I'm 34 tomorrow. I'm only 34. I can still say that. But for some reason, I can't shake this feeling that I'm running out of time.