Age ain't nothing but a number, right?!?

I recently saw a photo of me and my friends that's more than a decade old. Sans for tong and jeanie..everyone was there. And good lord, i must say with age comes great WISDOM - especially on shallow matters such as - what not to wear during a party. And we thought we were sooo cool back then. Shows us how little we actually know.

only rainy looks decent enough to deserve a published photo

11 years later... still smiling and living it up!

I turned 25 again last Monday. Funny though, i don't feel a day over 23. I know that sounds totally insane and self-absorbed, but i just don't feel that i am a year over quarterlife. Granted, I have the maturity level of a five year old sometimes, but it's not a matter of depth or what not. And it's not a matter of learned or life changing experiences because believe you and me i have had my share of those, but just the same i don't feel my age.

When i think of a 26 years old, i think of a young married woman whose sole responsibility is making sure she is setting a good example to her kids (oh yeah, feminist police throw the handcuffs on me now!) Or someone who has successfully figured out the mysteries of the universe. 26-year-olds shouldn't be concern over the latest episode of gossip girl. Or the latest FW/SS collection of Marc Jacobs. And beyond that less than insightful inclination - they shouldn't be lost and unsure of everything else that constitutes that all too consuming phrase of "having it all". Maybe i overestimated what 26-year-olds dream about or have in their lives when i was younger. Maybe things are never what they seem. All i know - i used to wanna grow up as fast as i could possibly can and have them grown-ups start accepting me as one of their own but nowadays i would be perfectly please to slip back in being once again young and carefree.

Note:

Reposting from Chasing Cars - October 2007

One of my favorite lines ever from Grey's Anatomy, "We're adults, when did that happen? AND how do we make it stop?" - I have previously posted such line (see august 2006 archive) and i haven't stumbled into the answers a year later.

Sometimes, you wonder, if you were accidentally raised with a silver spoon and that you now expect the world to bend at your will. IF that were the case things would have been much simpler. Because it could only mean one thing...you've realized you've developed a lazy bone and now you have, one recourse, to change. But it's more complex than that. The more you go about analyzing every whimsical detail of your life, you realize that nothing was ever handed to you on a golden platter. You've worked hard for those that you have accomplished so far. And yet you don't feel entirely euphoric over these things. You have somehow landed a very glossy on paper job. And it has everything that you wanted. The thing though is, sometimes what you wanted, when you get it, becomes something different altogether. And it makes you wonder if you have been on track from the very beginning? What if you were supposed to take a different path but have chosen to make a left somewhere down the road and now it's a little late to make the pre-requisite U-turn?

You read before that 'at the end of adolescence and the onset of midlife, most people do not change at all in the developmental stage' You couldn't disagree more. You dont know one single soul in their twenties that does not search into their lives (no matter how shallow some reflections turn out) and get out of it thinking, it's just a little overwhelming. To live up to the social construction of what your twenties are supposed to be like..

"These thoughts never used to enter your shallow mind. Not since you realized that maybe you can have it all, maybe you had it all or maybe you can lose it all. How then do you manage expectations? To go from this ideal child one minute to an adult with pragmatic dreams the next? If you were ten years younger, what would your young self say about you? It's so difficult to marry all the dreams we used to hold on to, to what we now know is possible.

You miss Sunday mornings. Watching late night talk shows. Marathon conversations over afternoon coffee during weekdays. Reading novels all night long. You miss not knowing the full extent of the words BILLS, CUTOFFS, EVALUATIONS, MEETINGS, CANCER, GRIEF, LOSS,,...

Don't get things wrong though. You are extremely happy. More so than you've been in years. You wonder if it's due in part to an addition in your life.... You have little or no reason to complain...You're just left wondering some days...of the could have beens, of the days gone by, of the years ahead, of everything else that makes your twenties that much more extraordinary. Somedays, you feel that you are no better than a child...