This post is not brought to you by a watershed event. I haven’t had a birthday recently, and I haven’t found gray hairs. I do admit having gray hairs, but it doesn’t bother me.

It’s just that getting older - not growing up - has been on my mind recently.

I’m only 32. But, to drip over with drama, death grows near. At least nearer than 10 years ago. And definitely nearer than when I thought 30-something was old.

Thirty-two. That’s halfway to the Beatle’s famed number. That’s closer to getting AARP mailers than to wiling away time in a backyard sandbox. That’s old enough to know better, and still wish at times that you didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. I like 32. I have the best post-college job I’ve had so far and a beautiful girlfriend. Good money awaits me every Friday. I enjoy what I’m blessed with. Plus, when I don’t have a goatee, I look much younger and get carded for beer. When I was 20, I couldn’t have understood how flattering that is.

So, today, as I sit in a Tijuana Flats down the street from my apartment, I raise my Negro Modelo to getting older, and the joys and challenges it brings - receding hairline and all.

Cheers to what lies ahead.