I turned 39 years old last week. While a lot of people my age are freaking out about being 40 soon, I couldn’t be happier. I love getting older. Every year is better than the one before.

I like the feeling of memories, and the growing accumulated weight of experience that aging gives. Every adolescent seems to enjoy posing as a wise old sage, but to actually have those things that come only and naturally through the measured passing of many calendars…there’s a sense of being in harmony with life just by participating in so much more of it.

Remembering things that are only history to the younger people I work with–that’s a good feeling. It’s warm.

Having actual nostalgia for decades long since disappeared–that’s also its own special experience.

I like watching public figures I care about getting older with me over the years. I like seeing  those figures from earlier generations in their past work and realizing just how young they  truly were then.

It seems like all the most beautiful women, for example, are all about 40 now. I suspect that in another 20 years they’ll be the 60 year olds. That’s fine by me.

Aging is like a heavy cotton comforter. You can wrap it around you and feel its solid weight. Youth–that ephemeral idol of our society’s worship–is just a light, silky blanket by comparison. There’s no real substance. I like substance. I prefer the comforter.

I realize, too, that this pontificating is coming from someone who still isn’t really old yet, but that’s just it. I know that. I don’t dread it. Of course I don’t look forward to the aches and pains, the diminished physical capacity that aging brings, but the increased store of memory and experience makes even that worth it to me.

I can’t wait to be in my 40s. I’m sure that my 50s will be even better. Decades of joy are still ahead.