Do you feel like a kid?

I am going to be thirty-two this year. I have a receding hairline for crying out loud. And yet…

I don’t feel like a grown-up… At least not all the time. Obviously around my kids I feel grown up (unless I’m being purposefully childish with the preschooler ;)) Yet when I’m around other adults in a general setting (i.e. the grocery store) I feel like I’m somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, and I somehow have less leeway with the other adults I encounter, like I should be somewhat submissive or something. I suppose it’s like I haven’t earned my adult pants yet. It’s kind of hard to explain.

Please tell me I’m not crazy, and that I’m not alone? :smiley:

I’m 56 years old, with a wife, adult kids, a mortgage and a small business on the side. I worry constantly that the adults going to notice I’m faking it and order me outside to play with the other 11 year olds.

Trust me, most of us are making it up as we go along, hoping no one notices.

I just turned 59 this week. Apart from the obvious physical degradations (trifocals, not quite as strong, occasional joint stiffness) I don’t feel much different from when I was in my 30s. I don’t feel like a kid, but I definitely don’t feel like someone who’s almost 60! :eek:

I’m a senior citizen and feel like a teenager inside. Now. That’s an improvement over the eight-year-old I felt like while we were raising kids, working and dealing with aging parents. I feel like a wonder-struck teenager with some life lessons I learned that stuck.
The body ages. The insides evolve.
You are not “behind.” :stuck_out_tongue: Join the club and scratch your butt and get glad.

You’re definitely not alone.

I’m knocking on 50’s door (this year) and I can’t help but feel I’m doing something indefineably wrong somehow.

I wouldn’t say I feel childish or immature, but I certainly don’t feel like I share the values or attitudes of any of the other 50 year olds I know.

I should ask some younger people how old I seem, that might be a wake-up call. It might be just me thinking I’m an eternal youth, and everyone else thinks I’m an old fart.

I’m over 50, going on 12.

I still do stuff like give the grocery cart a big push and then jump on the bottom rack and coast through the parking lot. I climb trees for the fun of it, I’m as giddy as any schoolgirl about my horses and my cats, I wrestle with the dog in the grass, I sit and daydream in the sun when I should be working.

I can’t help growing older, but I refuse to grow up. (Well, mostly. The responsible adult emerges in time to pay bills and and get the car serviced and all that boring stuff…)

Amen.

37 is the new 18, or so I tell myself (it sure feels that way).

See, that’s the Big Secret Joke. You will always feel the same inside. When you were little, you looked at people in their (for example) 30’s and imagined they felt different from you. With more experience under their belts, money in the bank, a job, a college degree, a car…whatever. But when YOU get there, the feeling of being a Grown Up is an ever-receding target.

I’m 64, and I feel the same inside as I did when I was 20. I definitely know more, I’ve been married twice, I’ve had friends die, I held my husband’s hand when he died…I know I’m older and wiser and different in terms of experience, and certainly appearance. But the Thelma inside is timeless and ageless.

Yesterday I had people over for lunch. We sat at the table in my dining room and ate grown-up food off real dishes, with cloth napkins, but I felt like we were playing house, and I might as well have been at the table with Barbies.

I go to a community college and I’m old enough to be the parent (or grandparent) of each of my classmates, and even one of my teachers. But I feel like a peer in age even though I know they don’t see me that way.

BTW I had this conversation with a good friend who’s 84, and she feels the same, too.

Seriously, I feel the same as I did when I was in high school. Almost just as awkward too.

I try to enjoy the feeling, because it is GOOD to be young at heart. But I can’t say I really like it all the time. Even when I have moments of maturity, I just feel like I’m performing and that anyone with half a brain can see right through me.

I feel about the same as I did when I was 22-25. I’m 37. Occasionally I’ll feel old (usually only when I’ve got a cold and am trying to keep up with my kids at the same time), but generally I feel younger than everyone else and am hoping no one realizes I’m an imposter at my job. Yeah, I know what I’m doing, but why anyone comes to me for counsel I have no idea.

Definitely. Yea, I do all the responsible adult stuff, but after that, I go back to acting like a kid. Heck, 9 times out of 10, when there’s a large gathering of adults and kids, you’ll find me playing freeze tag, hide’n’seek or something with the kids while the adults are standing around talking about boring stuff.

I am technically a kid - 15 years old.

Though I’m 45, I still feel like I am in my early 20s. I always feel like a kid when I am working with my coworkers who are also in their 40s.

I’m in my 40s and I’ve often been accused of being a kid who never grew up. They probably mean it as an insult, but personally I don’t see it as one. :wink:

I know what you mean. I feel like I stopped growing up in my early twenties and I have been faking it ever since.

Last season on the show Mad Men when they revealed that Don Draper was turning 40 it completely blew my mind because I was about to turn 40 and I couldn’t believe it. He’s like a grown up. What the hell am I?

I have to admit sometimes it depresses me because I feel like it must be a character flaw but most of the time I guess it just is who I am.

I am always surprised when I look in the mirror and see and adult. People tell me I look at least 10 years younger than I am (47.) When I observe children misbehaving (nothing dangerous) I want to participate. I do feel much wiser than in my youth. At any given time I am 5 or 9 or 13 but never older than about 30.

I’m 43 but on an average day I feel like I’m in my mid-twenties but I act like a kid sometimes. I love playing at the park, hooping, running and rolling around in the grass with my girls. I feel my age physically after about five minutes but it’s not stopped me much.

I feel like a 20-year-old girl! Unfortunately, there aren’t any around at the moment.

My late grandmother used to say; I am a 19 year girl, I don’t know who is the 80 year oldie in the mirror.