Self Perception

I have often wondered if other people feel, or have felt at some time in their lives that they are younger than they are. This may seem like a weird question, but it is one that I sort of grapple with all the time. I am in college now and so the world is supposed to be open to me. Being in college means I can make anything of myself. There is a world of opportunities waiting. But at the same time, I feel sometimes like I am way too young to be doing all of this.

It seems to me that as you grow up, you do not necessarily feel like you are growing up. I can remember elementary school, being in the lower grades and thinking that the fifth graders (who were the oldest kids at the school) were so much older and bigger. When my class got to fifth grade, I didn't feel any older than the kids behind me. I didn't feel that much bigger. The kids in my class didn't look like fifth graders, they just looked like the kids from my class like they always had.

In sixth grade I thought the eighth graders were so much bigger and older than me. I remember them seeming more like high school kids than my peers who were only a couple years ahead. The eighth graders were at the top of the school, the leaders. When I got there, again, I didn't feel any different. The sixth and seventh graders didn't seem all that small (well, some of the sixth graders were pretty tiny) and I didn't feel all that old. I felt too young to already be in the eigth grade.

When I got to high school my freshman year, man did those seniors seem grown up. Only four years older, but they were really tall, they looked like adults. They were so much more mature than us freshmen. Even the other upperclassmen, the juniors, seemed so much different. Last year I was a senior in high school. As a senior in high school I did not think I was that old or that grown up necessarily. I know for a fact that I wasn't all that big because in physicall size I really am small. I went to the middle school one day to pick up my sister and I was only about the average height for goodness sake. What do they feed kids these days?! But I didn't feel hugely older than even the freshmen as a senior. I felt like a high school kid. It almost felt like we were equal age.

It's funny how you perceive yourself throughout life. I didn't feel any older. I didn't think I looked any older. But the fact remained that I was indeed a senior. I turned 18 during that year making me a legal adult. My parents told me how mature I was. I had been driving for a couple years and I had a job. I felt like a kid doing all of it. And yet I wonder if at this time when I still just felt like me, the way I always had, still younger than those who held this position before me, I wonder if there were freshmen who saw me the way I seniors at their age. I wonder if the seniors of my early high school days ever felt like time flew by to get them where they were and if they felt too young to be there.

Now I am in college, and to be honest I feel different now. No one seems older than me anymore. Half the time I guess people's ages wrong because I guess on the low end when actually that person is a 4th or 5th year senior. The thing is, I still feel too young to be here. I am 18, I did graduate and I am on my own, but it's almost weird to be here. I don't feel inadequate, I think college life is what I was made for. People in college are more like me and the level of difficulty of classes is finally just what I like. But thinking about the changes the next few years will be bring, the change that is already occuring once again makes me think, "wow, we're too young for this."

I decided sometime during my senior year that it would seem weird to me when my friends or at least my peers started getting married. One girl who went to my church and graduated a year ahead of me is married now. A guy and girl who also graduated a year ahead of me from my high school are married. Another guy I know from that same year is engaged to a girl from my own graduating class! And now being in college I realize that realistically a lot of my friends and/or I could be married or getting married in the next 4 years or so. Wait, what? One of my best friends is currently in a relationship that seems fairly serious. Could he get married in the next few years? That question just blows my mind to think about.

Beyond the people getting married thing, I think about the fact that in three years, I will be out of college. I will truly be in the real world completely on my own. As a college student I would say I am halfway there. I am mostly into the real world, but being in school means that I am not completely out. In three years I will either be looking to get into graduate school, or I will be looking for a job to start making a living. Wow.

My fascination with this subject while likely continue for a while as I continue to explore this life ahead. As I ponder relationships, forge ahead in school and work, and listen to the news coming in from friends, I will probably think about just how young or old I am for quite some time. But more intriguingly, I will wonder whether the older people I know felt the same way when they were in the shoes I now fill.