You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday too, yeah.

And what a birthday it is: The Big 6-0.

Despite the blogging and the Blackberry, I'm getting on in years.

Just typing and posting that, I feel like I'm coming out of a closet. Yikes! Now the people I work with and for, who probably think I'm somewhere in my 50's - which I was, up until just yesterday - will know the wrinkled truth.  You're 60? What's up with that? No one but no one over the age of 60 is still working in high tech product marketing.

We were supposed to have struck it big by now, cashed in, cashed out. Too bad all those options I was granted over the years ended up snorkling.

On Thanksgiving Day, my (65 year old) cousin said, "It's just a number."

But it's not, really.

Yes, I can realistically expect to live for another 25, 30, 35 years - here's hoping in pretty good health, working and/or volunteering for as long as I can, surrounded by the people I care about. But there's no getting around the fact that, statistically speaking, I'm now lumped in with the elderly. (Although I did find one definition of middle age that extends it to 64. Bless you, Erik Erikson, for that.)

So, I haven't exactly welcomed this birthday with open arms and a big wide grin. I have, in fact, surprised myself by how much I have been dreading it. (Surprised myself because not one of the other big birthdays: The Big 3-0, The Big 4-0, The Big 5-0, bothered me in the least.) But The Big 6-0? The song I'm actually associating it with is not the Beatles' Birthday Song, but Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction.

I can't really put a finger on just what is bugging me about sixty.

Maybe it's just the wistfulness of knowing that from here on out will be, more or less, the home stretch. Or the anticipation of the losses in my generation that will be starting, if not in this decade, then soon enough. Two close friends lost sisters (both in their mid-sixties) to cancer in the last year. Yes, they died too young - but not remarkably so.

Maybe I'm just jealous of all the beautiful, sexy, on the go young people I see out there who have it all ahead of them. And who haven't yet caught on to the fact that they're going to die someday, too.  I've always known the 'going to die someday' bit - you can't grow up Irish-Catholic and not have that knowledge in your repertoire. But I am jealous that "the kids" do have it all ahead of them.  Damn! I want to get a big promotion. Make out with my boyfriend in a bar. Show off my legs in a mini-skirt. (They're still good, at least from the front.) But of course I won't be doing any of the above.

And then there are the little physical markers. The crepey skin on my arms. (When did that happen?) The need for ever more powerful reading lights. The cold tip of my nose. (Sign of aging.) Not to mention the small memory glitches. I used to never forget a name or a face. Sure, there are a lot more names and faces to remember at this point in life, but it's starting to happen occasionally. (We've met?)

Which is not to say that I won't have adventures, fun, interesting work, travel (Paris next May!)...

And look at my fellow 49-ers: Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep. Still going strong.

Of course, they have achieved greatness, something I haven't managed to do. (I am, of course, still waiting for greatness to be thrust upon me. Who isn't?)

All in all, this is the homestretch. And I know it. It's still my world, but just barely. Mostly it's the world for the rising generations.

When my Aunt Margaret was in her early eighties, she was visiting my cousin at the Cape. She went for a swim, and when she got out of the water, she told her daughter that this was the last time in her life she'd go in. It was.

I'm sure it will be many years before I start marking off those 'last times', if I ever do. (Driving a car, flying to Europe, wearing jeans.)

Still, I'm feeling a little bittersweet about this birthday.

You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday, too, yeah.