Aging

[fyrna]

Within the past year, the reactions I get from strangers have gone from "You look N years old!" to "You look N+7 years old!"

I find this very disturbing (I aged 7 years in 16 months), and its messing with my sense of self-identity. I feel like now, I really have to act like a grown up, because I look like one, and I don't want to be a grown-up.

Comments

[jethrien]

I'm bekidded!

Does it help to consider the idea that grown-ups have to have a 1950s family to be extremely outdated? You wouldn't use 1950s tech, you don't have to use their social mores, either.

Look, if the Norman Rockwell thing is what you want (and that's not a crack against it, clearly I'm quite enjoying it, it's just not the only good choice), then you probably do need to think about self-identity. There are, unfortunately, some biological constraints that you've got some time on, but which don't care much about your self-image. But then,you also might want to examine your image of what one must be like to be a parent. You may not feel like your mom, but you don't necessarily have to be like your parents to be a parent.

But you may also want to challenge your idea of what an adult looks like. You're a jet-setting international engineer, who as a consultant has owned her own business. You have your own apartment, you control your own social life and finances. If that's not the behavior of an adult, I don't know what is. Again, just because you don't fit an outdated narrative doesn't mean you're not a grown-up. Grown-ups take responsibility for themselves and their own actions, which you've been doing for the better part of a decade.

[fyrna]

Fair enough.

"You're a jet-setting international engineer"

I don't want to be one anymore. I want to just be a normal twenty-something who's trying to figure things out in the world of normal people. I've never been one of those. :(

[jethrien]

I think you'll find that if you examine "normal" closely enough, it doesn't exist. Go for "comfortable for you" instead. (But if jet-setting isn't comfortable anymore, you're entitled to find something else that is.)