I have never felt my age. I really cannot remember one time when I felt how old I was. Even as a small child, I usually felt older than I was. At nine years old I would sit on the bus and think of some pretty interesting things. I decided when I was nine that human beings live their entire lives to die. Yes, that was the culmination of everyone’s life, to eventually die. I mean, what nine-year-old thinks of things like that?

In some ways it’s always felt like I had a much older person living in my head. Yes, I know that makes it sound like I’m crazy, if you haven’t noticed, I don’t deny it. I’m not even a quarter of a century old, but I feel like I have an 80-year-old woman living in my head. The kind of old lady that yells at kids to pull up their pants, or cut their hair, or get a job. She smells a little like mothballs, and she shuffles around in a housecoat and worn pink slippers muttering under her breath, but she’s comforting too. Her living room is inviting with big, fluffy, old chairs and lots of pictures on the walls. There are candles and nick-knacks on all her tables, and little lace doilies too. I like to visit her and listen to what she says, she does not reminisce about the days of her youth because she has always been this old. Maybe she’s a carryover from a past life.

I don’t really remember what I started out to say, but I know what I will say, just because there is an old lady living in my head doesn’t mean I don’t ever feel young either. I fluctuate between feeling too old for my age and too young. I still act like a little kid too. This young, kid feeling doesn’t come from my head; this one comes from my chest. It’s this little bubbling, burning feeling, like a laugh that’s trying to get out. Whenever that feeling hits me, I’m goofy and immature. I tend to do things like skip in public, sing annoying songs out my window to strangers in parking lots, and eat lots of candy. This feeling is comforting too. It’s the whole Peter Pan mentality that I will never grow up, and I don’t feel like I have grown up in the conventional sense. I mean, I’m mature and responsible when I have to be, but deep down inside I’m still a kid too.


So, I guess I oscillate from one side to the other. Either I’m the old sassy, crabby lady, or I’m the young, carefree kid, but never my actual age.