On turning fifty, old friends, and the places we call home
Mark Twain once said, “We can’t reach old age by another man’s road.” He said this at a celebration of his seventieth birthday, and he was having fun with the idea that people who live a long time ought to tell everyone else how they did it. He suggested his own habits had suited him well enough, though they might not do the same for somebody else.
I have been thinking about that line as I turn fifty. I am not seventy, and I am not ready to offer anyone a plan for how to live. But reaching fifty does make me look back at the road behind me and wonder what I have picked up along the way.