Writers and bloggers often remark on turning 40, a great passage in our culture, an age seen as the transition from being young to being older, the mark of the time when there is perhaps less time ahead of you than behind you. On the Open Group For Bedlam Farm, I see lots of great posts about growing up, getting older. People seem stunned by aging,  just as they rarely seem to understand that their dogs and cats will die, and nobody seems to know getting older will happen to them until they mark a birthday.

Few people seem happy about it, or see it as an accomplishment, or journey towards wisdom and experience. It is almost always marked with dread and shock. This is in part because there are so many people willing to tell us how sad it is to grow older, how difficult and disturbing, how painful and expensive. You have to know where you are in life, every age has its special rewards and challenges.

When you were expecting a child, did anyone ever tell you what a wonderful experience it can be? How beautiful, meaningful and transcendent it is to bring a human being into the world? When you got Lyme Disease, did anyone ever tell you all the stories of people who get well quickly and move on? When you pass 40, did anyone ever suggest there is are riches and opportunities, satisfactions and learning beyond imagination? Or do they roll their eyes, just-you-wait, better start getting your IRA’s together, now is the time for long-term health insurance, start taking pills for cholesterol, blood pressure? Why would anyone welcome turning 40 in our topside-down world, where our friends and the media are endlessly collecting warnings, dangers and dire predictions for you. Struggle stories are the currency of our time, but to me, they are fake money.

I am happy to be writing from the other side of the prism, I turned 65 last year, and never in all my life did I imagine turning 65 and setting up my Medicare. I like it a lot. I am better at being old than I ever was at being young, I feel some of life’s turmoils and challenges are behind me, I am collecting some knowledge about the world, I can share it from time to time, I can mentor, I can see things younger people can’t yet see, haven’t yet experienced. I have a lot of good stories in me from having lived this long.

For me, the key to getting older in a meaningful way is to shut out almost everything anyone has ever told me about getting older, including the many older people ensnared in our system of exploiting the elderly and prolonging their lives to make money on tests and pills and endless care. Why would they be happy, how could they be?

I can tell you from further down the road that 40 is a great age, a young age, so many years of opportunity and change ahead. And I can tell you that in many ways,  you can write your own story about being 65 too. Nobody told me I could find love, change creatively, do podcasts, make new friends, learn to meditate, herd sheep every day,  thrive on Facebook,  walk in the woods, control my own health, run around like a mad fool, learn to take photos, learn to do e-books, get a dog like Red,  learn to love my life every single day rather than look at the calendar, throw up my hands, and say “Oh, God, I am getting older, I am actually going to die like every other living thing in the world.!”

It is wonderful to go visit my daughter and not feel or be responsible for her life, just enjoy her wonderful company. I know a few things about love, too, old and wily rascal that I am, and I am learning how to be a real man after all these years, how to love and support and encourage rather than dominate and bully.

At age 50, I left my world behind and ran to the mountain. I decided there I would not again let anyone tell me what to feel about my life, infect me with their gloominess and disappointment and limited expectations. I rejected a life of security, and chose a life of creativity.  Every time is a good time, every age is a good age. This is our life, and it is up to us, not a single other soul, to decide how we will live. How we will grow older. And how we will die.