I was saying to Gal Smiley this week that I don’t feel as old as 54. I still feel relatively energetic and plenty enthusiastic. I have plans, big plans, so many places to go and projects to accomplish and closets to clean out.

54 is for grey-haired grandmothers (okay, I do have the hair on lock). It’s for people who tsk-tsk when song lyrics include the word fuck and people who spend too much time monitoring their neighbours’ comings and goings. It’s for people who are comfortable with the places they know and the viewpoints they already have, and aren’t looking to change the world-as-they-know-it.

That’s not me. Is it?

I’ve had a couple years of huge change. I’m still in the same house in the same town, but I’m flying solo, working a new job, adjusting to losses in my family, both by choice and not by choice. I’ve travelled to more places in the past two years than I have ever before in my life. I’m working hard to keep up with developments in the world of pronouns (a work in progress) and to learn to make TikToks. I wrote a book. I’ve tried therapy for the first time and I’m learning a lot about what makes me tick, embracing the parts I want to celebrate, letting go of the parts that have been holding me back.

I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and I think learning is what keeps us young (that and a good eye cream, feel free to drop me your recommendations). I still swear like a sailor and I still leave the house after 8 p.m. on occasion for karaoke (rare occasions, but still). I still have a 25 year mortgage and I still don’t understand how to report stocks on my taxes. And if I’m now struggling to read small print even with bifocals, and huffing and puffing a bit when I climb stairs, these seem like minor things.

I’m still young at heart, I guess is what I’m trying to say. It’s cliché but I guess clichés happen for a reason. I’m looking outward at the world in wonder still, and I hope you are too.