As someone who has always been below average in height, I'm used to being treated by adults like I'm younger than I am. People often equate height to age--doesn't make sense, but that's the way it is. If you're someone who is vertically challenged like me, you'll know it's a little embarrassing to be sixteen and asked if you need a kid's menu at a restaurant. Finally once I started arriving with no adults and my car keys in hand, hosts stopped asking (for the most part).
After passing the milestones of getting my license and then graduating from high school, people still guessed my age at an average of around three years younger. I justified this by rationalizing that I was still technically below adult-age. Once I turned eighteen, surely the madness would stop.
My eighteenth birthday came and went. I was in college, living on my own, handling my life pretty independently day to day, and STILL on breaks, adults ask me how I’m liking high school. High school was fine; when I was in high school... In those situations, as I explain that actually I'm in college now, their thinly disguised looks of shock are deflating.
(via twitter.com)
I'm not sure if I thought turning eighteen would magically make others see me as an adult, just because now, according to some laws, I am one. I realize that a birthday doesn't change the way you look, but I was so, so hopeful after a lifetime of not being taken seriously. I understand that eighteen is still incredibly young, and I'm not fully mature yet (are we ever), but it would be nice to be regarded as somewhat of an equal by other adults.
I've realized lately though, that it doesn't matter what people initially think of us based on the way we look. If another adult treats me like a child and I counter with confidence and sophistication, their opinion about my maturity will likely change. Age is tricky. When we’re young we spend so much time dressing or wearing makeup or carrying ourselves in a way we think will make us look older. As we get older, that will change. People tell me that I'll be grateful I look younger than I am when I'm thirty and forty and fifty and I used to shrug their reassurances off. I think now I’m starting to understand. No I don't think I'm old yet (at all), but time is flying by.
As I reach the end of my first year of college, I am beginning to appreciate the accelerating nature of the passage of time. This year felt like it began about a month ago, and now I'm a quarter of the way through college! We need to appreciate the time we have, and each age we turn, even if it isn't one where we're taken seriously yet. Eighteen is fun, and seventeen was too; soon I'll be nineteen, a sophomore in college, and that much closer to living completely independently. It will all become too real, too quickly, I've decided to enjoy my age, and appreciate each year for what makes it special (even if I'm still called "sweetie" by cashiers). And hey, at least I get to vote in the upcoming election (not). My first election and these are my choices?!
(via mashable.com)
