In college, twenty-nine had seemed impossibly old. By now, she’d
thought, she’d be married and have kids. But as each year went by, she
didn’t feel much different than she had before. Time kept going by and
she was just here, the same. It seemed like it all happened easier for
everyone else. Look at Harrison’s friends. They just got married and had
kids and didn’t seem to think about it too much. Maybe that was her
problem. Maybe she was thinking about it too much. Or maybe the fact
that she was thinking about it meant it wasn’t right.
--Jennifer Close, Girls in White Dresses
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thebitterbabe 
Wow. I identify with this one.
Do you read Crankshaft, the comic strip? That’s the first place I remember understanding what was going on in my head, that I would always see myself as decades younger than I was
It was never made clear to me that older people saw themselves that way, or when a man did it was ridiculed as childish. I never saw it mentioned for women. It was just sort of a given that women understood that phenomenon naturally.
Y’all don’t though, do you? It surprises you just like it surprises me.
Same here I think for pretty much all of my twenties I felt like I was internally 18-20, and even into my early thirties, the needle only budged slightly, to, say, 20-25 – my guess is that given that I hadn’t hit any of the external milestones my peers had, eg. long term relationships, children, meaningful career – in many aspects I WAS caught in a time warp of sorts, and had much more in common with coworkers a decade younger than me, than my true age peers.
Case in point: last night I went to a xmas party thrown by my former boss/friend, a very gregarious and warm woman. She had loads of people there and was busy trying to get people to mingle etc. She soon steered me to a pair of twentysomething couples, saying something to the effect that “young people should stick together”. I am 37 and single, but somehow in her mind I am still barely post college in experience level. Which is fine, because there were other people there closer to me in age, whose lives however are currently taken up by house buying/ second baby pregnancies etc. And I feel have little to contribute to those conversations. (although in this particular situation, I did have stuff to say, since it had been a long time since I’d seen many of them and had some happy updates of my own to share – and thanks to this blog ;-), I was also feeling pretty confident about my life choices and not too lonely even though I was practically the only singleton there over 18!)
You might find this post interesting:
https://thebitterbabe.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/timetables/
Interesting read- thanks!
Forgot to add – in the last couple of – perhaps because I feel like I’ve finally started to get a handle on what I want to do with my life professionally, and was involved in probably the two healthiest romantic relationships of my life (albeit briefly), the needle has again moved forward – my internal clock now points to…. 32 😉
* in the last couple of YEARS. Sorry for typo!