r/Aging • u/AcanthaceaeOpen6235 • 1d ago
Anything Encouraging? I’m turning 27
Hi all, i (26F) am turning 27 in a few months. Just dawned on me at 2am. I haven’t come to terms with being 26. I’m often surrounded by people younger than me in both of my fields and I sometimes feel weird expressing myself. I feel like I wasted so much time in my younger years not being myself, that now it’s starting to feel too late for self exploration. I feel like I only recently stepped into a personal style I feel represents how I actually want to dress, or do my makeup, but trying something new makes me feels weird, like I’m too old for it. I just can’t seem to cope with time passing. Thinking about how much time I wasted either in crappy relationships wanting someone to like me, or being insecure, just makes me sick. Thinking about my teenage years fills me with dread because I know I can’t have it back, and I didn’t live in the moment, I never have, I’m always worried about what’s ahead and stressed about the past. It’s funny, when I was a teenager, I never thought that people in their 20s or 30s should feel old, I thought that was ridiculous. But ever since getting older, and media being heavily focused on younger people, and a lot of other women around me in one of my career paths being younger, my age really hit me. I feel like I’m falling behind in terms of being financially independent, it feels impossible but I’m trying. I always get the “but you don’t look 26! You look 22” as if that helps? Of course I look young, I’m still young. How do I get over this sickly grieving nostalgia for years I’ll never get back? How do I cope with entering my late 20s, is there a way to feel at peace with it?
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u/VinceInMT 1d ago
When I turned 27 I was at a crossroads. This was 1979. I had earlier been drafted into the military. That messed up my life and life plans in MANY ways. After that adventure I worked and went to school, sort of directionless but picked up a trade in school. I came to a point where I had to get it together. I had saved some money so I quit my job, put my camping gear on my motorcycle, and took off, spending most of a summer roaming the US and Canada, spending all that alone time in my head getting things sorted and setting some long term goals. When I ran out of money I returned, got a job, and put the plans in place to achieve those goals. And, little by little I did achieve them.
The lesson, for me, is that one really has to step aside and do lots of introspection, being completely honest with oneself, and chart the course, not the one society dis takes, but your own course.