It's Just a Number

Recently I find that it is hard to remember how old I am. I mean, I know how old I am, but sometimes I think, is that right or is it another year this way or that? I actually had to think about it based on birth year earlier today to make sure that I was right.

I guess as you get older this matters less and less. Although it matters to some people a great deal. It will matter to me when I am 40, or at least, I might remember that year, that I am actually 40. But that's still almost four years away and a lot will happen between then and now.

Sometimes I wonder where all the time goes. I was thinking of my little jackrabbit and his youthful 28, considering what I was doing in my life when I was 28, and I was, in fact, moving to the UK. Then I think about how much I have grown between then and now- how much has changed. It's a lot really. But it never feels like that.

I was reading something the other day by a woman who is at least 20 years older than me and she was saying that when she thinks of herself, she still thinks of herself as she always has. Some sort of ageless 20-something. Not that she was 20-something, but that she didn't feel her age.

What does age feel like? I know there are symptoms of getting old. These damn body failures for starters. There was certainly a time I would have physically bounced back from most trauma. It's no longer a guarantee. I know that I'm much happier with myself now then I was when I was younger. This is a positive thing.

Youth is wasted on the young, and I used to think that was about the very young. But it applies to the vaguely young as well. How I wish I could occupy my 20 year old self with my 36 year old knowledge. How different my life could have been. But I don't really regret it, rather, it amuses me- that life in perpetuity is simply an exercise of 'so unfair'. You might as well find it funny, because there's no point getting angry about it.

Something I read recently said that to get into the habit for your PhD you should write every day. I'm not sure they meant that you should write in a journal, but I do need to get back into the habit of writing. So the blog is going to benefit from this for a while I think.

I feel out of the habit. That my posts are disjointed and unpurposed. Although my writing has never been overly purposeful. I've definitely gotten out of the habit of talking about 'things going on'. I think perhaps I should try more of that.