I had never heard of John Hively before.
But I was looking for a quote about aging and found this:
“It's easy to grow old if you haven't grown up”
Wow... I'd not heard this one bit of my psyche put so succinctly before- but thank you Mr. Hively.
I turned 40 last year. That sentence does not cause me any great emotions except to wonder the same thing I have told folks for pretty much the last twenty years.
"I can't believe that the world has allowed me to enter the adult workspace..."
From the moment I felt the freedom of not living under parental control and being loose in the world, I have hardly felt a day like I belonged in it.
This isn't to say I have not learned your rules and adapted to how to "be an adult." I never felt like Peter Pan and wanted to stay young, but I always felt like I had pulled something over on the rest of the world. Like a kid who stayed up too late for the first time. That realization that I could, still wondered "why?"
I guess it seems slightly irrational. Is it any less so than the fact that I look at my nine-year old year old daughter and still see the baby girl? I KNOW she is nine and quickly approaching 30, but I will always see that little baby face. As proud of the little person my nine-year old daughter is becoming, it is hard to forget where she came from. Thankfully, she seems to have inherited this little part of my psyche that says growing old is ok, just don't grow up.
So as my body is clearly beginning to tell me that I have grown up, I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm still a stranger in this strange land of being an adult. Thankfully, I do have a little reminder, but haven't grown up.