Just to stay active, I’m going to go with rather casual and light prompts. It’s something to add to the daily prompts.
For now, I’m going to cover how I approached aging and my age.
I had a delayed entry into casual adulthood. The first delay was by one year. My mother had me repeat a year in grade school (K-5). It wasn’t actually necessary, but she felt it was a good idea. Then I immediately went to college for a 4-year Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology after I had graduated from high school. I lived with my parents and commuted from home. I was lucky enough to get my tuition fully covered.
My graduation in the early 2010’s became my personal marker for evaluating the amount of time that had passed in my life. That offset my entire sense of progression in life by five years. Getting my first full-time job in my late 20’s felt like getting my first full-time job in my mid-20’s.
I didn’t care for a lot of traditional milestones in life, so I wasn’t measuring my life against those. That didn’t give me a sense of urgency. Aside from hair thinning, I was aging fairly gracefully. That also lowered any major sense of urgency. No marriage, no children, no attempts at romantic relationships. I was born AMAB, so fertility loss with age is naturally less of a concern.
Now a sense of lost time is starting to hit me. Realizing that you’re closer to Walter White’s age than Jesse Pinkman’s age can contribute to that, particularly when it used to be the opposite. Being alone in a starter apartment can also contribute to that. My brain keeps revisiting the past.
I have a vehicle, so I can get around, but I also have the fewest active social connections of my entire life. The fewest active social connections with nothing that will naturally create active social connections, including just acquaintanceships.
This is a weird contrast from Surface Combat System Training Command at the lakefront section of Naval Station Great Lakes, where I was stuck in student barracks that had five people per room. Where people were regularly curious about me and would make frequent attempts to reach out.
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