Have you seen the show Younger? It's on TV Land, and if you're not watching it, you should because it's hilarious. It stars triple-threat, Tony Award-winning, 40-something adorkable Sutton Foster as a divorced mom of a college student rebooting her life in the city by lying about her age in order to get back into the work force. While it certainly makes fun of Millennial and aging Gen-X stereotypes, it does speak to the different ways we act at different ages, and the expectations of others.
I feel like I've always been "younger," which is weird because right up through college I always felt like I was older. This could mean that I've been in my mid-20's since high school, in terms of my mental position. See, I still think that age is more a state of mind than it is a physical condition. When I say that, I'm talking more about certain fundamental ways in which you view the world. I think it enables you to be more optimistic, perhaps see less gravity in daily matters, conform less to expectations, etc. I realize that there are idiotic things that people do when they're young, but I'm not really talking about those.
What's cool about that is that every year brings more experience, and experience, if you really make it a point to learn from it, adds wisdom to the "young" perspective. It's a quality that I find attractive in people my own age, and they seem to be the standouts in our age group in terms of happiness and success at life. They don't seem beaten down by the world.
I think that feeling "younger" is probably the reason that Diana and I ended up being a good match, but I'm not sure what circumstances got us to that. I bet a lot of it had to do with being child-free still in our mid-30's. I tended to date younger before meeting her (she's the only date I ever had that was older than me), I coached teenagers, I worked with a lot of younger people, and frankly it's somewhat atypical to have no responsibilities beyond yourself at that age. There are definitely external influences.
The funny thing is that, now, with a kid, I want to see the world through his eyes more than ever. I spent some years seeing very little wonder in the world, and watching Simon be fascinated by the simplest things feels instantly familiar and amazing. I'm very grateful for this arrangement. I'll take being naive and optimistic over cynical and pessimistic any day.
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