Yes, Virginia, there is something sexy about being sixty. Thanks be to God and Jane Fonda.

Come 2025, Generation X turns sixty and guess what? Everything is going to be alright.

My gift to myself on the 12th day of Christmas and my 60th birthday is not throwing a party. As a child born on the Epiphany I’m blessed with flashes of brief but profound understanding of the mysteries of the universe and about my upcoming diamond jubilee? An angel, Gabriel, said to me, “go to Italy with your husband instead. There you will find a jubilee made from art, pasta, God and vino.”

One reward of the journey of mind and body is the accumulation of judgment. At 40 or even 50, I would throw a party for my birthday and it would be a disappointment. Instead, at 60, I’ll be forgiven of sins and possibly robbed. It’s all very exciting.

First we will fly to Trieste, where my grandfather Lorenzo Principe I knew as a Catholic Italian while he was alive was born a Jew in what was then Austria, my mother recently disclosed. Life and death are full of surprises.

From Trieste we will travel by train to Florence to bathe in art, culture and sauce for two nights at Hotel Pendini. Our pilgrimage will end in Rome just outside St. Peter’s Basilica, where we’ll join millions of Catholics and pickpockets. Our 5 star apartment has two balconies! Ciao bella!

You’ve got to play to your strengths. My forte is not party-throwing. It’s pissing people off with audacious ideas and planning trips. I also make a mean chocolate cake and relish a searing cross-examination. I cry easily and wear black too often.

Everything is happening at once. There is war and peace. Feast and famine. We are young and old.

Thank you, Jane Fonda and Martha Stewart and Meryl Streep and Warren Buffett and Bruce Springsteen. To be old is to be a phenom for them. That makes it easier for us.

Thank you, Boomers! There has never been a better time to turn sixty, now the junior prom because of you.

Coming soon is the next phase of the next greatest generation. Our X bodies are relatively durable with stuffing made from grit, some talent, energy and creativity. We are wired with rare and well-regulated emotions. We work hard! We laugh at ourselves and others.

Gen X cares deeply and doesn’t give a shit. We drink too much, but not alone.

And therein lies the magic.

Longing never dies, it gets deeper. That’s the good news.

Never underestimate the power of being underestimated. That’s the lesson.

How lucky we are to be alive and in love with getting older in America.

To every old badass out there, I salute you. “Cin, cin.”

Happy new year.