At what point do you realise that you are not eighteen anymore? For most people it is their nineteenth birthday, I suppose. I of course, do not fall in that bracket. Which is why, when at 28, I say those hitherto innocuous words as a response to a friend's unsuspecting "Hi!" and those words turn back and smack me on the back of my head with a "Who do you think you are, eighteen-year-old Crumbs?" I can only offer a mouth gaping like a goldfish in response. How do words do that? Where did they even get those tiny vicious hands to smack you?
That starts a depressing spiral of thought-processes, which goes from, "My god, I am too old to say 'What's up, yo?'" to "Why the hell did I start saying 'What's up, yo?' in the first place? What is wrong with 18-year-old me?" Which, of course, my now 28-year-old self immediately sees as an opportunity to be snarky and mean. "Lack of a mouth-to-brain filter, terrible over-estimation of capabilities, SO MUCH ANGST, to name a few," she smirks. "If you want a complete list, we'd both be 30 before we finish."
Sigh. Some days you function like a well-adjusted adult person, on the other days, your present self and your past self decide to have a conversation and give your future self a headache.
That starts a depressing spiral of thought-processes, which goes from, "My god, I am too old to say 'What's up, yo?'" to "Why the hell did I start saying 'What's up, yo?' in the first place? What is wrong with 18-year-old me?" Which, of course, my now 28-year-old self immediately sees as an opportunity to be snarky and mean. "Lack of a mouth-to-brain filter, terrible over-estimation of capabilities, SO MUCH ANGST, to name a few," she smirks. "If you want a complete list, we'd both be 30 before we finish."
Sigh. Some days you function like a well-adjusted adult person, on the other days, your present self and your past self decide to have a conversation and give your future self a headache.