I just caught part of an NPR interview with a 52-year old comedienne who recently wrote a book called "When You Lie About your Age, the Terrorists Win." Thank you Terry Gross! This is the kind of caustic reminder I need sometimes. At 48, I am unfortunately susceptible to feelings of melancholy and loss when observing the younger people in my life. I envy them; life was like "that" for me too, once, and it never can be again. Focused on looking backwards, I mope and mourn, worse off than the Montana housewife who will never feel secure and safe, knowing that her neighborhood Walmart is the next terrorist target. Might as well just go home and malinger with the drapes closed.

Recently, I was sitting with a friend – from my own generation – and we were listening to a boy in his 20s tell a story about meeting a girl, and at some point in his narrative of paralysis-in-the-face-of-opportunity and love-gone-awry, we looked at each other and said, in accidental harmony, "isn't it always the way..."

At that moment, we were united in feelings of happiness and relief at having left 23 behind us, and having grown into sophisticated and worldly creatures (she was even wearing pearls and velvet at the time) when..."Jinx!" she said laughing.

And I was immediately 6 or 7 or 8, chasing my best friend across the back yard on a summer night, with the sprinklers going in the distance. Jinx: short, simple, musical – a word with magical powers to summon a vanished time, but with glee, not sorrow.

Maybe this is one of the pleasures of growing older, an expanding landscape of memories to explore like pools of water. Put your toes in this one, trail a hand through that one, dive in and race through a third....