There's a wolf mask involved. Bear with me.
Today I turn seventy. It lands, by accident of the calendar, on a Blue Moon — the second full moon to rise in a single month, which is where the phrase "once in a blue moon" comes from. This one peaks in the small hours of May 31, 2026, and it's also a micromoon: the most distant, and therefore smallest, full moon of the whole year. A small, far-off moon for a small, far-off feeling. It suits the day.
I've lived through roughly 865 full moons now. Not one of them turned me into a werewolf, so I'm fairly confident this birthday won't either. What it does turn me into is a word I can barely pronounce: septuagenarian. Let's just say seventy and move on.
Here's the part that actually stopped me. This channel is built on one fixed number — my daughter and I are sixty-one years apart, and that gap is the whole point. Except it isn't fixed, not quite. My birthday is in May; hers is in June. So for the next few weeks, until she turns nine, the arithmetic changes. I'm seventy, she's still eight, and that makes us sixty-two years apart. The brand name is temporarily, technically wrong. Then her birthday arrives, the gap closes back to sixty-one, and order is restored. I find this much funnier than I probably should.
There's a line that goes around the internet: it's weird being the same age as old people. That's me today, more or less. Seventy is unambiguously the territory of "old people," and yet I don't feel like I've crossed into it. Partly that's denial. Mostly it's logistics. You cannot feel old with a near-nine-year-old in the house, because there is no time allocated for it. There's homework, basketball, tennis, piano, a mountain of graphic novels to keep up with, and a standing argument about bedtime. Old is a luxury of the unbusy.
So I'm not marking seventy as an arrival at anything. If anything it feels like a strange little pause — a number that says one thing while my actual days say another. The full moon outside is the smallest of the year. The age I just hit is the biggest I've ever been. And the only transformation on offer turned out to be a fairly boring one: I'm exactly who I was yesterday, plus a candle.
Which leaves me with a real question, not a rhetorical one. What age did you first feel old? Not the age you turned — the age it actually landed. I'm seventy today, and I'm still waiting for mine to arrive.
Transcript: Awoooo! Don't worry — even with tonight's full moon, I'm not turning into a werewolf. I've lived through about 865 full moons. Never happened once. And tonight's a Blue Moon — the literal once-in-a-blue-moon kind. Fitting. Because what I am turning into is a… septuagenarian. I can't even say it right. Let's just go with: today, I'm seventy. Here's the weird part. For the next few weeks — until my daughter turns nine — we're not Sixty-One Years Apart anymore. We're Sixty-Two Years Apart. There's a line that goes around: "It's weird being the same age as old people." Yeah. That's me today. But I've got an almost-nine-year-old to raise. No time to feel old — too much still ahead of us. So be honest: what age did you first feel old? I'm seventy today — and I'm still waiting.