In the fall, I feel a twinge of sadness.

I feel it because I’m older, almost sixty. I don’t feel I grew older — I suddenly found myself this old, an unfathomable leap I seem to have made. Forty wasn’t old, nor was fifty. Sixty is old.

They, the faceless mass of bearers of pithy statements, say that age is just a number. Yes, it is. But it’s also a path strewn with memories that go way back, and the tendency to pull them out and examine them: “I remember when there was still a soda fountain in my hometown.” Now I never see soda fountains, but energy drinks are everywhere.

The fall is associated with aging, because it’s the gateway to the winter of the year, in which the year dies. I don’t plan on dying soon, but I know that I’m closer to it than when I was twenty. And each falling leaf reminds me I have seen many, many autumns.

Perhaps I can learn to be old and young at the same time. There are leaf piles to jump into, puddles to stomp. Inevitably, I will grow old, but I don’t need to hold back on joy.