My dad is 60. Well, he is tomorrow. But we had a small party yesterday.

It's weird. Sixty used to be old. Now it's not; it's my dad. Everything's relative, and in many cases � whether we realize it or not � it's relative to ourselves. Ten, 20 years ago, when the only 60-year-olds I knew were professors, teachers and great aunts and uncles, I would've considered it old. Now that my dad's a sexagenarian, Old moves up to 70. Maybe 65.

I'm never ready for these shifts in perspective. As a college freshman, I couldn't see myself as a senior. There was such a gap between the 21- and 22-year-old seniors and the 18- and 19-year-old freshmen. They were of legal drinking age, engaged, signing contracts and getting jobs. But three years later, as a senior myself, those freshmen seemed more mature than I saw myself and my peers just three years earlier. I'm now 27, to be 28 in five months and 17 days. Twenty-eight used to be on the far side of young and free, closer to parental responsibilities than babysitting duties. My mom got married when she was 26, had me when she was 28. I've got college friends who married a year or two out of school and some that now have children. But to me, I don't see them as parents, though that probably has more to do with the fact I don't see them than with anything else.

As for myself, I still see me as a young guy. I feel closer to college kids than I do Jennifer Aniston, who's 35, but between now and next March, I'll cross that line that puts me closer in age to the actress than to the current students at my alma mater. Although it seems like time's moving so fast that these perceptions of age are fresh in my mind, the years have gone slowly since college. I've had enough fun to slow down the fast-flying pages of the calendar so that 30 doesn't sneak up on my too quickly.