This is 40. As a kid, 40 never seemed particularly old, but it was certainly the age of one's parents, and therefore, no less inscrutable. I am now within two years of my mother's age when I graduated from high school. And what have I done since then? How have I filled the intervening two decades? Well, I attended Bible college, interned on Capitol Hill, flew in the Navy, lived and traveled for three years throughout more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, got a bachelors in English Literature from the University of Colorado and a Masters in Cinema Studies from New York University, married and divorced an extraordinary woman of whom I still think the absolute world, started gardening, became an atheist, moved to Hollywood where I write and produce science television, and am now dating a spectacular woman who was there, in high school with me, at the very beginning. This is 40: I'm poor, I don't own a house or anything of consequence, I have a maddening lack of stability, I don't have any children (and it's a good thing too--on no day do I feel remotely prepared for any random 18-year-old to look upon me as an adult authority figure), and I don't know when or if any of that is going to change. But here's the thing--I am happier now than I've probably been at any point in the last 20 years and I am surrounded by the most luminescent friends in the world. I am certainly more fulfilled and more thrilled at the prospect of what comes next, even if I greet it with a few extra wrinkles, a few extra pounds, and a little less hair. This is 40. And I like him.

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