Gransnet?

GlassNo Silly Billy she is 73 (keep up dahhhhhhling)

You are 75 though !

76

always the same

The posts have moved on but I will add this, when people say they feel they are still a certain age, what they mean is that is the age they feel they came into their own. In other words became an adult. They are certainly not locked in their past.

I always had the feeling in my head that I was 17, I felt I became an adult at that age. I had a fiancé who had been drafted into the army and he faced going to war, he had no choice in the matter. Life was not simple and easy for me, I married at 18 and moved a long way from my home to be with my husband. We were young but had to grow up quite quickly. I am certainly happy in my own skin and would not want to be 17 again. I quite like being retired and doing as I please.

Faye I don't really understand what you're saying. Do you mean that people say that they feel a certain age regardless of their actual years because that was the age at which they felt they had achieved adulthood and that you feel as if you are still 17 in your own mind? That seems different from those in their sixties and seventies who claim to feel a decade or two younger than they are but who must have achieved adulthood a bit earlier than their "imaginary age". Neither seems to me a very healthy or truthful way of seeing oneself and both seem to demonstrate a striking disregard for all the experiences that have happened over the years.

totally

[head spinning]

Yes Faye. Something like marrying and moving away from home would make you grow up quickly. Especially if it was marrying someone who had to go to war.

I'm with the mob on the queasyness of silver surfer. Give me a break! Slimy.

Also on the "I'm still 21 inside" brigade. My take on this is that they feel like they have never properly grown up - still feel insecure and lacking in confidence. I feel sad for people who are like that.
I certainly feel like a very different person inside. Thank goodness.

jess what happened to "wearing purple"?

I am really glad I am as I am today (creaking joints and bits missing apart!) when I think back, I sometimes do not like the person I remember, or I feel sorry for her. That was then, this is now.

I'm sorry but I think you're all reading far to much into this "I feel younger in my head" thing.

I certainly don't feel insecure or lacking in confidence, I just don't feel like an old woman.
I feel quite "grown up" too.

I feel like an old woman.

Don't worry, jingl. You don't post like one...

Can't I feel like a grown up young woman ?

I'm with Ella. There are all sorts of reasons why one might have felt good at an earlier stage in life and imo it is wrong to assume you know what they are for someone else.

Humph! Not sure what that means Madam! (*Ana*)

Yes you can glamma. Good one.

The good option, jingl

Right o then.

It's not like that at all Jess/absent (are you sure ou are not the same person.) I don't feel any different from when I was aged seventeen. I feel different from when I was sixteen though, probably because I didn't have responsibilities then. It is hard to explain as it is a feeling. I guess if you don't have that sentiment, you may not understand.

Yes. There was a definite point in my life when I grew up. Because I had to.

Movedalot I have a fondness for the song that starts "When I was seventeen, it was a very good year…" as it was.

However, it would be absurd and delusional to feel that age in my mind now. There's a huge difference between remembering a good stage in your life and getting stuck there.

Define "old woman". As in "I don't feel like an old woman" or similar sentences. What's wrong with feeling like an old woman if you are one according to the number of years you've lived?

I don't think we'll ever get beyond the silly slights about old womanishness if people can't be proud of being old.

For me that's what it's about. If someone calls me an old woman in a demeaning way, I'll challenge them.

Bit like being proud to be black, or gay, or an atheist, or a feminist....

Be proud to be a mature woman, an old woman, if you are.

THEN attitudes will change.

You still don't understand absent/Jess it's not about trying to stay young. It's about feeling you are the person you are and became aware of it around a certain age. As I said it's a feeling.

Sometimes I feel very similar to how I felt when I was seventeen. (See my Merlin thread). But that doesn't mean to say I'm "stuck there".

Faye JessM and I are two separate people. Why would you think otherwise – or was that a joke? I'm not good at jokes.

I find it strange and infinitely depressing that you seem to be suggesting that one just stops growing mentally at a certain age. Surely the person one is at 40 is different from the person at 17 and the person at 50 or 60. What is there to look forward to?