The Heartbreak of Ageism

Confession: I wish people would stop treating me like a child.

"What grade are you in?" asks the well-intentioned estate agent for the house I'm touring with my parents.

For context, I am now well into my post-graduate years. As in, I have completed college. And yet, asking what grade I'm in implies that I am still in grade school, or at the very least, high school.

Let's just say that the inquisitive stranger had a look of substantial shock when I informed her that I am already in my 20s.

I'm sure that one day, I might take comments about looking young for my age as a compliment. But in my current stage of life, it feels like a label of failure.

If only I didn't still live with my parents... then maybe I would be on a house tour all by myself, and they would be asking a different set of questions, about my career, and plans for a family, and normal adult interests.

Funnily enough, I never would've expected my reaction to these remarks to be so strong. If anything, I might have expected myself to be pleased with having a youthful disposition. Not in the 'aging women clinging to society's unrealistic standards of beauty' way, but in the 'young adult clinging to her childhood' way.

I have always loved the innocence and safety of childhood. In many ways, I clung to it. I still do! The Disney ears on display in my room are a telling indicator of this reality.

But sometime in the last few years, I started seeing adulthood as something to embrace, and not to run from. Unlike teenagers who look to small acts of reckless rebellion to hurry up the process of growing up, my process feels unhurried and tender.

I want to start paying bills, merely to have the satisfaction of knowing I can be trusted with my own paycheck. I want to exercise my purchasing power by shopping at environmentally friendly shops, and bake my own birthday cake, and send all my friends Christmas cards. I want to start inventing traditions and habits so that my life can begin to look fulfilling, meaningful, and entirely my own.

So really, my issue wasn't with the real estate agent thinking I looked young––it was with her inability to perceive the life progress I have been so delicately cultivating. Because if she cannot see that I am a confident, self-sustaining (ish), unique adult, then maybe no one can.

Of course, saying it all out loud (in writing), I am quietly reassured by the ridiculousness of my thinking. Perhaps a new quality I will add to my list of adult attributes is insouciance. (Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit I did have to look up the definition of that word, but it basically means nonchalance).

I want to have the carefree leisure of not caring what other people think. Perhaps this is why, despite my typically people-pleasing personality, I have just acquired my third tattoo. In my mind, the ink is a quiet declaration of confidence in the choices that are entirely my own. And it will let people know I am at least 18 years old.

So, to any stranger in the future who mistakes me for a pubescent teenager, because I know they will continue to do so: I forgive you. And I'd love to share who I really am, if you'd like to give being friends a chance.

“This too shall pass.”