Isn't it funny when something happens that you've wanted for a long time -- a thought like a rough stone that's been rubbed smooth -- and it's both nothing and exactly like you expected? And you feel like you're in a new place you never quite imagined, but also a totally familiar place that isn't really any different at all?
Quite apart from the above, someone at a dinner party last weekend brought up the subject of natural age, and I've been thinking about it ever since.
I love the idea that internally, we all sort of settle at some age that expresses ourselves perfectly -- one of my roommates' natural ages is about 52, for example, because he's kind of a middle-aged soul, somehow. Another roommate's natural age is 13; he plays practical jokes that involve pantsing people and displays fanatical devotion to cartoons with scatalogical humor, but those are more symptoms of his natural age than the real reason he is just intrinsically 13. It's not the fact that he likes that stuff that makes him 13, it's being 13 that makes him like it.
But it works for some people and not for others. H. and I couldn't really figure out our own, and some of my coworkers were totally obvious and others not at all. I might be developing a theory that the people who don't really have a clear natural age are actually currently AT their natural ages, but I'm not sure if that really holds true.
Does this make sense to any of you? Several readers of this blog have natural ages that seem blindingly apparent to me, but I don't know, maybe it's less clear when you're looking at yourself. What are your natural ages? Thoughts? Feelings? Just want to share a self-indulgent metaphor about stones? Like sands through the hourglass... :)
10 comments:
Hm. That is tough. I would like to think I'm about my own age... but at the same time, there are certain situations that make me feel different ages. Mostly, there are certain situations that make me regress. :)
ah yes, regression...
What I chose when grg and I discussed this was (in this order), "11 or 12, but also mid-seventies, and yet I've been looking forward to my thirties for a while." I see a similarity in the 11 & 75 year old ages, so I don't think they're in direct conflict. I do feel fine being 28, though.
40. I've always been 40.
That was me, not "anonymous."
If you had asked me this question when I was in college I would have said 30. However, over the last few years I have regressed to about 18 or 19. I blame my motorcycle and Xbox Live for this slide. Something about being taunted by faceless 12 year olds brings out the worst in me :)
Jason? Is that you?
Today, I think I'm 50. M. and I are trying to write wills and living wills and medical power of attorney. It doesn't get more grown up and "old" than that. Tomorrow, tho, I'm going to be 18.
You know, I never thought about it being able to change every day -- that's an interesting idea. I think I am about 17 today.
Also, hi, Jason. You will be proud of my for typing your old nickname but erasing it so I didn't tell it to the whole internet. :)
Kelly - Yes, it's me.
Gwen - I thank you for that courtesy but it isn’t necessary. Feel free to call me whatever you wish. I am in too good a mood to care :) Do it here or on my recently revived web page. I fgure a year off is more than enough, don't you?
I think I've probably always been in my 30s.
But I think living with an (almost!) 3 year old automatically makes you behave like a child in the best imaginable ways.
An interesting confluence, since we just watched "B4 Sunrise", where the female lead describes herself as 70 years old inside and the male as 13... making their onscreen kiss a bit interesting.
When I am "feeling like myself", I think I am in the ten to twelve year old range. Old enough for a bookworm nerdy kid to use a phrase like "interesting confluence", but too young to care about how other people judge you for the words you use, the clothes you wear or the things you do.
Of course, these days with work, bills, wills and weddings... it is hard to feel like an 11 year old very often.
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