I turned 51 a couple of weeks ago. I like birthdays. And no cancer survivor in their right mind complains about getting another year older.

It’s kind of like a lopsided baseball game — even though the winning team is far ahead, they still try to cross home plate one more time. You can certainly win the game without the insurance runs, but they do make the victory a little more secure. At 51, I’m 11 runs ahead, which is a pretty nice lead.

A few random birthday reflections:

• My family doesn’t even try to put all those candles on my birthday cake anymore; i just get the big number candles. I think they believe it would be dangerous otherwise.
• It’s fun to watch my younger friends freak out when I tell them I finished my masters degree before they were born.
• It’s cool to see the look of surprise when younger people realize I know how to work a computer and can type a text message just as fast as they can.
• It’s good to have an excuse for being absent-minded and scatterbrained, which I’ve always been anyway. Now I can just remind people that I’m old. My kids buy it completely and leave me alone about the forgetfulness.
• Every year is better than the last. The body may be falling apart, but my mind is full of the kind of lessons you only learn from experience. When I can remember them. See above.

I have a great life and am grateful for each and every one of these years. I love having adult and almost-adult children, especially when they turn out to be people you’d spend time with anyway. Marriage is better after 23 years than after one — anyone can be married for a year; 23 is a grand slam — and I’ve always wanted to hit one of those.

Note: I do know that baseball season is over. It’s the only sport I know enough about to make an analogy. And it’s only a few months until spring training starts.