I have been ashamed of my age my entire life.
I have a weird, inferiority complex when it comes to age.
If someone is older than me, I immediately chalk it up to them being better or more certain than me.
No matter how old I was, or am, I never feel old or young enough.
I remember sitting in an ice cream shop in elementary school with my sister and our friend Claudia. At the time, we were no more than nine years old, but we felt grown-up on our first outing parent-free. Mind you, it was just around the corner, but nonetheless, we were excited by our newfound independence.
For whatever reason, a woman, a mother, stopped by our table, asking us how old we were. Without missing a beat, we told her: “Twelve.” To us, twelve might as well have been twenty.Â
Tacking on the extra years made us feel more secure and serious. We were embarrassed to be our true age.
It seems to be a universal truth that when you are younger, you wish to be older, and when you are older, you wish to be younger.
As a twenty-year-old, I long for an age that will bring me authority, and I dread the fact that I will have to grow into this authority, rather than it be handed to me on some magical birthday.
My twin sister and I have always rounded up our age to appear more important. We’ve “been” twenty for over a year now. After all, we were only 5 months shy of 20. What’s the difference?
It’s the same as a kindergartener telling you that they are really five and a half years old. Not five, but not quite six. It’s an important distinction, especially when your age licenses others to make assumptions about you.
I feel so ridiculous and obnoxious for just existing as a college kid because it is a constant reminder of youth. I am hyper-aware of the fact that I am cosplaying as an adult.
Yes, I am a twenty-year-old kid. I live with my parents, and I have no idea how health insurance works, but I am also a twenty-year-old woman. I research grad schools, deposit money into my high-yield savings account, and love running errands.
On the flip side, when I’m working with kids and get pelted with judgmental questions about how I am not yet married with kids at the ripe age of 19, I am reminded of how relative age is and how grateful I am to be not fully independent yet.Â
I am so lucky to experience this type of blissful, young adulthood, yet I cannot fully enjoy it because I have decided that it is embarrassing to be not fully prepared or aware of the responsibilities and intricacies of true adulthood.
Unsurprisingly, age comes with time, and to wish time away in hopes of gaining some sort of authority is truly childish.Â
I am not sure if the age hierarchy is as harsh as I feel it to be, but I do know that I am missing out on the experience that will give me the wisdom I yearn for by adhering to it.
We are all just living and learning, and at different rates at that. Age does not mandate maturity or knowledge. It is just an increasingly arbitrary number.