I Hate Age

Forgive the rant...but I seriously hate my age.

And no, it's not about being just over 5 months away from 21, wanting to go to clubs and drink and such (although I must say...all those cutesy fruity drinks just look so fabulous)..

I hate age because I feel like it's limiting. In the Bible, Paul tells Timothy, "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young.." So when it comes to church-related things, I try to keep in mind that God is the one doing all the working anyways, and He can use young or old to do what He wants. For instance, I led a crew to Germany that was 75% older than me. Perhaps things might have run smoother with a more experienced sage at the wheel, but for whatever reason, God let me do it. This is fabulous. Spiritually, I feel really free of numbers, knowing that God uses the weak (which can often be the young) to show off His strength. I've got this crazy idea that I can change the world, and I don't want to wait around until I'm no longer afraid of being carded.

Unfortunately, outside of the Bible, I don't have many people on my side. In the real world, the numbers matter. I can't date anyone much older than me because it looks shady for them to be with someone "under age." In the business side of things, I think they aren't allowed to discriminate based on age, so at least I've got the government working for me on that one. Because they won't be able to infer my age when I interview...or when they read on my resume that I've only been in college for two years now. I think the worst, though, is when I get the look. You know...I make some comment about feeling old...perhaps it's a joke about hitting menopause because I suddenly feel a wave of heat and think I'm starting to get hot flashes, then someone else in the room, who may, for all practical purposes, be merely 3 or 4 years older than me, rolls her eyes and says, "yeah, talk to me when you're (fill in the blank) years old..." In fact...I'm pretty sure I heard this when I was a teenager from girls who filled in the blank with 20. Perhaps I should look them up to talk now that I'm 20 and still feel the same about this number, formerly known as age, as I did back then.

Truth is, a lot of times, I feel old. I'm 20, but I seriously feel like I've lived, like...30 years worth of life. (some of you are giving the look right now..) Experientially, I think I'm older. It probably has something to do with my upbringing and just the weird way my crazy little mind works. But life happens, and there's a lot of crappy stuff, and (praise the Lord) a lot of really good stuff too. And when I look around at other people my age, I sometimes wonder if I'm from some other planet because they just don't seem to look at the world the way I do. I feel ancient.

Then there's other times that I feel really young. All that crappy stuff in life reminds me of how fragile and weak I am. Pondering how big God is reminds me about how small I am. Seeing the wisdom of others makes me feel small too; their maturity reminds me that I have so much further to go.

So if I can't seem to figure out whether I am old or young for my age, maybe we need some other way of counting. Like...I've experienced 32 years of boy drama, 24 years of the American
educational system, 18 years of cool God moments, 0 years of personal computer maintenance, and so on. I'll get some math people to work on some sort of equation for this because something is seriously wrong with this whole number system. Why is it that on some arbitrary day, you become one year older and all of a sudden one whole number bigger. No one ever feels any different during the change from 7 to 8, despite the inherent excitement of knowing that you get presents on this day, even though you didn't anything that fabulous except breathe in and out a few more times. So why a difference between 20 and 21? Will I really feel any smarter, wiser, or cooler next February? Granted, according to popular culture, I will look cooler with some sort of alcoholic beverage in my hand, but this aside, I doubt much will change.

Anyways, time is money, and I'm pretty sure I've taken away a good chunk of yours. I don't really know where I'm going with all this, except to pout like a 2-year-old (note: tell the math kid to add this number to the equation). Maybe I can just lie. Or...if I count from conception, then technically I'm already 21. So there.

Yeah...I'm done...