The Onset of Cognitive Dissonance

[taste_is_sweet]

Otherwise known as how I'm turning 41 this June. Yes, 41. Forty-one. The big 4 - 1. Ol' One and forty.

Aside from finally remembering how to spell 'forty', I've come to the unpleasant understanding that despite how I'm well on my way to decrepitude (occasionally feeling every second of it; believe me), I still almost constantly feel as completely unprepared for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as my kid, who is seven. Hell, sometimes I feel he's way more together than I'll ever be.

Anyone else feel like that, out there in the blogosphere? Like a total fraud who is going to be discovered for the completely green, soaking-behind-the-ears newbie to life in general that she actually is? At least sometimes?

Of course, I also get to add to it the small but sad daily reminders that I'm no longer 20-something and cute but 40-something and matronly. It certainly doesn't help that I live in a small city where the average age is something like 24, because of the big community college and huge university, each with their multitude of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boys and girls running around. All of them so cute and vital and young enough to be my offspring.

And yet in my heart of hearts I feel like I've barely made it to 18, which is at least the legal drinking age in Montreal. If I felt like drinking, but I don't have the same tolerance I used to.

Comments

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is unusual at all. A much older mate of mine once told me that while it's difficult to understand when you're viewing the world through 20-something eyes that there are fewer "stages of life" than they realize, that really we're children, then teens/early 20s, then aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadults for the longest time where our internal perception of ourselves really doesn't change much, and then finally true old age sets in (she was 70 at the time).

MG's Great Aunt who is 96 told me she sometimes catches sight of herself in a mirror or shop window when she's not expecting it and finds herself thinking "who is that old lady?"

I think it's really important not to give in to society's view of you. You, who are dangerous in ways 20-somethings only think they understand. *g*

[sholio]

Oh good heavens, yes. I'm 36 and still feel like an adult imposter. Sometimes I have to stop and boggle in amazement that not only do I seem to have somehow acquired a responsible adult life when I wasn't looking, but other people treat me as a responsible adult too!

Of course, it doesn't help that I obstinately refuse to quit enjoying a lot of hobbies and activities that are considered only suitable for young people, like fanfic and video games ...

[sgamadison.livejournal.com]

Hey, apparently you're allowed to date someone half your age plus seven years. Why? Because that's how old we think we are! ;-)

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

I'm 42, and it doesn't seem real to me! In my mind I'm in my early 30s at most and I sure don't have my life pulled together (in fact, it's a bit of a mess). Sometimes I hate looking at myself in the mirror and seeing someone who is no longer cute and young!

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I'm 27 so i'm young, but I still feel old age bearing down on me like a bad driver. I've resolved to be cute and young, no matter my age.

[wpadmirer.livejournal.com]

Wussies! All of you! (says the nearly 60 year old as she runs in the other direction)

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

Wow, I hear you. I really hear you. I'm 43 in NYC and believe me, I feel the pressure of being the invisible middle aged woman every day as 24 year olds prance by me... ARG. Talk to me about your feelings on this!

[mific.livejournal.com]

There's a tricky stage in your forties when this aging stuff really bothers you. It's linked with all those annoyances and blows to the ego like needing glasses and feeling increasingly creaky. It doesn't so much get better as you stop bothering about it, in my experience. I never feel much more than in my twenties, inside, no matter what the outside looks like. :) Immaturity is the fountain of youth!

[ride-4ever.livejournal.com]

Wow, reading all this makes me feel so not-alone and like "I love everybody in this bar".

My age? One year older than Paul Gross (who just turned 54 last month and is still a hottie).

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, yes - I never made it past being 16 inside my head, no matter what my body tells me. I'm still amazed when the bank manager treats me seriously - I feel like the biggest fraud on earth, and coming to the sad conclusion I'll never know what to be when I grow up *g*

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

Solidarity, sister. I just turned 44 and alternately feel 12 and 100. Aging is weird, man.

I'm 53 . . .

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that flavor of dissonance is a real bitch! ;-) I think I wrote a post about it one time for the year I did LJ Idol. Walking around in Northampton - funky college town in Massachusetts, all full of interesting little shops, street musicians, people walking around just doing their thing. I was enjoying it immensely . . . until I caught a reflection of myself in a window. WTF? Totally jarring - my outside and my inside were miles apart! DISLIKE!!

And I often (almost always!) feel like I'm faking it to a degree. I think I'm just better at it than I used to be, and people buy it a lot. Slogan for our karate instructor's training: Fake it till you make it! Life motto, more like :-)

So you're not alone. At the very least, I'm there too. And I'm positive there's so many others out there, it's just whether or not they reveal it ;-)

*hugs*

[ext-1752446.livejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Yes! It's crazy, isn't it? I feel nineteen all the time unless I actually look carefully in the mirror and notice that it's time to dye my hair again 'cause the gray hair is starting to go wild. I have to remind myself I'm an adult all the time.
But on the bright side, I ran into a twenty-something year old kid at a meeting the other day who had a really neat Boondock Saints shirt on. So I told him so, and the kid takes the shirt off and hands it to me. Tells me I got pretty eyes. So I still got it :) Just don't know for how long.

Young at Heart

[paleom.livejournal.com]

You just friended me so I came to check you out and found this.

I know EXACTLY what you mean. I turned 42 in April this year and I'm having trouble reconciling it. I faced 40 with a smile, nay even a laugh, but 42 seems to have wiped it off my face.

I feel I've aged more in the last two years than I have in the forty before. Mind you, it's been a hell of a two years, but even so. I am suddenly more aware that I haven't even touched my bucket list and I should still do something to fix that but everything is linked to money that I don't have.

I think it's because I've become stagnant, least that's the excuse I have so hoping that in the next year I can try to change that and get back to myself. Hoping that I face 43 with a smile on my face - wish me luck as I will you.

Failing that - Quest for the Elixir of Youth is now top of my bucket list. LOL

PaleoM
xx