And things are not as expected
We dream a lot as youth, dancing in the winds of time. Thinking that days are long, and seconds are as long as the days of elders. Now we are the elders. We are the elder. We are old. I have become the person I used to gawk at in surprise about their age and how they could have lasted so long. "You are 32?" I seem to remember saying once (or twice) to an innocent lady in a store somewhere in my long-past youth. "Wow. You are OLD!"
Now, as I embrace this newly experienced 'oldness,' I realize that I was wrong as a child. I was, after all, inexperienced and immature at the young age of 12, and would have had no solid knowledge of what 'old' really meant.
The ironic thing is that I REMEMBER the feeling of judging age. I remember looking at the 22 year-old at the restaurant and thinking that they were 'getting up there in age,' (an expression borrowed from my grandmother, I'm sure).
And now, here I am. Approaching my 33rd year of life and feeling young (despite the random wrinkle and gray hairs that are sneaking into my still thick, straight mass of overproduced head-hair.)
But (never start a sentence with 'but'), the doubly ironic part of this existence, is that I not only FEEL young still, I resemble youth in situational standing. My life looks like a 22 year-old, who just finished college and got a job. I rent a room, work a 9-5 job (7-3, actually, but you get the idea), I adventure on the weekends with other single friends, I date random people that I meet at random places, and I eat whatever ends up in my hand after leaving a dinner party. In some aspects, I am still a college students, broke and needy. In other ways, I am a capable, single female lost in the vast sea of "I didn't expect to be here"s.
So what do you do when life throws unexpected curve balls?
Well, here is the short and sweet answer: Keep going! :)
Now, as I embrace this newly experienced 'oldness,' I realize that I was wrong as a child. I was, after all, inexperienced and immature at the young age of 12, and would have had no solid knowledge of what 'old' really meant.
The ironic thing is that I REMEMBER the feeling of judging age. I remember looking at the 22 year-old at the restaurant and thinking that they were 'getting up there in age,' (an expression borrowed from my grandmother, I'm sure).
And now, here I am. Approaching my 33rd year of life and feeling young (despite the random wrinkle and gray hairs that are sneaking into my still thick, straight mass of overproduced head-hair.)
But (never start a sentence with 'but'), the doubly ironic part of this existence, is that I not only FEEL young still, I resemble youth in situational standing. My life looks like a 22 year-old, who just finished college and got a job. I rent a room, work a 9-5 job (7-3, actually, but you get the idea), I adventure on the weekends with other single friends, I date random people that I meet at random places, and I eat whatever ends up in my hand after leaving a dinner party. In some aspects, I am still a college students, broke and needy. In other ways, I am a capable, single female lost in the vast sea of "I didn't expect to be here"s.
So what do you do when life throws unexpected curve balls?
Well, here is the short and sweet answer: Keep going! :)
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