On Being a Grownup

I'm almost 30.

Yikes.

I remember when 30 seemed so old. In fact, I remember when the high school kids at church seemed old. My parents hosted the youth group at our house a few times when I was little, and I thought the older kids were so cool. Their coolness felt distant, unattainable. They had such cool clothes, and good hair, and they all seemed so at ease. I figured that when I was in high school, I would seem just as stylish and saavy.

When I was a freshman in high school, I definitely didn't feel cool. We moved from out of state just a few weeks before school started, and let me tell you--starting high school without a single friend in the world was possibly one of the most frightening things I have ever done. At the end of orchestra class (sidenote: being in orchestra probably did not help my coolness factor much), I stood up and shouted, "Does anyone have third lunch period?"

The room got silent. Most of you reading this probably did not know me in junior high, but for me to stand up and expose my soul to the room like that was like a death-defying stunt. I wasn't always as outgoing and attention-seeking as I am now.

One girl, with VERY blond hair and braces, admitted to having the same lunch period as I did, so I arranged to meet her before we got our food. Her name is Amanda Rostine, and she saved my life that day, and she probably didn't even think it was that big of a deal. She turned out to be one of the coolest people I knew at both high school and college. But I digress.

As a freshman, I thought the seniors were cool, and sophisticated. I was sure that as I neared the 12th grade that I would grow into myself and begin to feel more confident, but that didn't happen. In college I felt the same way, but never really managed to feel old enough to BE one of those sophisticated, well put-together students that I was always aspiring to be.

After I graduated, I started work, and still always felt young and silly, which was multiplied by the fact that I was the newest, youngest, female member of a team of mostly older, male software engineers. My defense was (and still is) to act silly and giggly when I speak to people that are more confident or knowledgeable about something than I am, and it makes me look less intelligent than I know I am. It's a bad habit.

Recently, though, and maybe because I'm about to hit the big 3-0, I have started to feel more like myself, and less like there is anywhere for me to go to become part of that higher, cooler, more sophisticated crowd. I almost feel like I'm there, but I can't believe it took me this many years--maybe that's why it is hard to believe that 30 is just around the corner.

Now, rather than wishing I looked or felt or knew how to act older, I relish the moments when people think I'm younger than I am. Buying beer at the grocery store in my running clothes and a ponytail, drinking with friends at a bar this week, meeting someone new...when people guess me to be younger than I am I light up and beam from within.

Why is it that we spend our childhood longing to be older, and our adulthood wishing for days gone by? I don't know if it is possible to teach someone NOT to think this way, but I think if I have children, I'll try harder than just saying "When I was your age...". I think I'll teach my children to pause in each moment so they really feel, really experience everything. And I think I'll teach them yoga so they know how to focus and just be. I wish I had known how to turn my mind's eye inward when I was little...maybe I wouldn't look back so wistfully if that were the case.