How Old Are You In Your Head?
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Here's maybe a fun question for today — how old are you in your head (vs your actual age, or how old you FEEL)?
I’m a few months away from a Milestone Birthday That Shall Not Be Named, and lately I’ve been thinking about the weird disconnect between how old you are and how old your brain seems to think you are. Apparently my brain has decided I'm in my early 40s… but it only recently updated the mental records from “mid-30s.”
There was a story in The Atlantic (gift link) a while ago about how you “always feel 20% younger.” Which… dang it, I just realized is true.
(Probably the only time this axiom is NOT true is teenagerhood… I know I felt like I was an older wiser 25 or so when I was 15, and that seems to be the way my surly teenager feels also.)
Some good excerpts from the article, including the intro:
This past Thanksgiving, I asked my mother how old she was in her head. She didn’t pause, didn’t look up, didn’t even ask me to repeat the question, which would have been natural, given that it was both syntactically awkward and a little odd. We were in my brother’s dining room, setting the table. My mother folded another napkin. “Forty-five,” she said.
She is 76.
(I just asked my parents, both 76 as well … my father said “late 50s but for the knees;” my mom said “old fart.”)
Personally, I totally agree with the person quoted in the article who said “whenever he looks in the mirror, he’s not so much unhappy with his appearance as startled by it—'as if there’s been some sort of error'”' were his exact words.” That is EXACTLY it… a mental glitch.
A few years ago, I got pulled over while rushing to get my youngest to a pre-surgery COVID test (ear tubes, round 2). The cop ran my license and walked back to the car with a grin on his face: “You haven’t been stopped in 27 years — I’ll let you go.”
My immediate reaction was to argue with him because that was obviously impossible — I couldn't possibly have been driving for 27 years. But we were late for an appointment, so I smiled, said “thank you,” and drove off.
Later I did the math and realized… @#$#$, he was right.
So I’m curious: How old are you in your head, and how old are you actually? And what are the moments that make you suddenly realize that your mental records may be a decade or two out of date?
Stock photo via Pexels / SHVETS production.
I’m 32 but I definitely feel max 26. 32 sounds grown up. People start saying “when I was your age I had 2 kids” etc. I don’t feel fundamentally different than I did in my mid 20s
20% younger for me is 54, which funnily enough is about the age I was when I ran away from my second husband and started over. I feel about the same as I did then so I guess I’ll take it.
And fun fact: My husband is 11 years older than I am, but I just asked him how old he is in his head, and he only hesitated a short moment before saying “54!”
I’m 37 and mentally feel like I’m in college. I see other people my age claiming to be “too old to try ___” and it makes no sense to me, especially when they’re fitter than I am! I also still dress like I did in college and would find it baffling to have a wardrobe like the mom in Home Alone, even though she was about this age in the movie.
Cognitively, I’m a spry 28.
Physically, that skateboard picture looks like a hip fracture in the making.
Chronologically, I’m nearing 40.
I feel younger than I am right up until I spend time with people of that age. I remember the first time I hung out with high schoolers again after I had spent a year in college (helping with my former scout group) and let me tell you, I felt old. Spending time with actual 20-somethings will disillusion you of the idea that you’re just like you were in your 20s and so on so forth. I think the mental state of feeling younger than you are is a reflection of the values of our society – getting old is bad so we don’t think of ourselves as getting older.
Forever 28 in my head. I’m 62.
I’m 35 and I guess I feel like I’m something like 26 – definitely out of college, fully adult in the sense of being 100% responsible for myself, but I feel that 20s angst of “am I doing everything right? do I have my life figured out? maybe I need to do ?; and I haven’t gotten to that settled & secure sense some women talk about finding by their late 30s.
But, no hesitation in trying new things, and I’m more active and in better shape than in my early 20s!
I like this question! My immediate response was that I’m 38, even though I’ll be 42 in a few days. I’m pretty sure I’ve felt 38 for the last 7 or 8 years and I expect I’ll be stuck there for the next decade or so!
I’m 54 but feel around 45, so that tracks with the 20% theory!