Im going to join the ranks of "30 somethings" in a couple of days.

Im actually really dreading turning 30, it's almost like being 30 means I can't be a mad little kid anymore, the type of strange adult that sets off all the interactive toys in Woolworths

It's probably a vanity thing as well, I look at all these 18 year old kids that go to the same clubs I do, and think God are they looking at me and thinking "she should really know better at HER age"

Is anyone else scared of getting older?

Not really. Then again, I only turned seventeen in August...

Older does not neccesarily mean wiser.

I'm absolutely terrified of getting old, though there's not really any reason for me to be. I'll turn 23 in April, and every time I look at that number I just go

Maybe it's because I talk to so many people who are between 17 and 20 online. 23 just seems so old in comparison to all of them, even though it's really rather young and you can thwap me for feeling old at this age if you want...

I don't have any problems with the idea of graduating university and getting a job and all that...I'm just afraid that someday it'll be far too ridiculous for me to still sleep with a teddy bear, make immature jokes, and wear underwear with cartoon characters on them.

Yes!!!!! Thats exactly how I feel!!! For instance right, I have crazy bright red hair and I wear lots of pink fluffy clothing, I just wonder how long I can get away with it for!!
I won't be parted from my cuddly bagpuss hot water bottle though, ooooh noo

Oh, and commie, do you want to live to see 18 mate??

I'm only a couple of years behind you Saucy.

About six years ago there were a load of kids on a corner smoking, aged around 12 or 13 and I said as I went past that they're too young to smoke. They shouted back that I was too old for my haircut. Cheeky buggers (damn good retort though).

Oooh!! I hate smart ass kids, there was a girl who lives down the road from me and she's about 15, she asked me where I got the trousers I was wearing from (a yummy pair of cyberdog things)because she thought they'd suit her better!!
I was soooo mortified!
I think it's easier if you're a guy though, because 30 is still quite young in bloke terms whereas if you're a woman 30 has a lot attached to it. The threat of sagging boobs. the rush to procreate before your ovaries wither and die, wrinkles etc.
Mind you, it's said that a woman reaches her sexual peak at 35 whereas men hit theirs at 18, so maybe there are some advantages...

If it makes you feel any better (and I'm sure it probably doesn't), I turn 20 in August and the thought of that bothers me quite a bit. I've lost my youth somewhere... *cries a lil bit inside* I don't want to be an adult!

I'm with you 100% Saucy!! I turned 25 this year and it really did bother me, hugely.

The thing is, I don't feel 25 (in fact I feel 19), I don't dress like other 25 five year olds with a kid and everyone seems to expect for me to suddenly change into an entirely different person all of a sudden.

This started when I had my son and is steadly getting worse as I get older. And, like you Saucy, I absolutley refuse to give up my PVC trousers, corsets, spiked collars, bright hair colour or piercings.

I hate growing up - but I intend to do it as disgracefully as possible.

EDIT

Which reminds me - it makes it even worse when you speak to an old mate who you haven't seen for a while and they ask if you've been 'domesticated'.

Don't feel bad about getting older! It's the stuffy adults that *act* like adults who are no fun. I personally think there are a lot of very cool adults here. I don't think growing older means you have to stop sleeping with a teddy bear and wear business suits. It'd be no fun. I don't plan on doing that when I get older.

Yeah, I know what you mean GTS, my mum is 72 and she's *still* crazy , thats probably where I get the feeling of never wanting to grow up from.
The other thing I was thinking about was girlie nights, I mean, how can I *ever* stop having mad girlie nights in with my mates? When do I have to turn them into cheese and wine gatherings instead??

Domesticated?! What, as in doing number ones and number twos in the toilet? Wahoo, I'm domesticated, I'm domesticated! Yay for me!

I was a bit upset at having to leave behind my teenage years when I turned 20 Missy, but a friend told me I could be twenteen so I was happy for another year. By the time 21 came around I was happy to be hitting it really, didn't get a key though .

I turned 22 a month ago and thought 'what have I done with my life so far' (and concluded that even if I haven't 'achived' as much as some my age, I've still done what I've done and wouldn't want to change it), more than OMG I'm getting old, I must conform.

I guess I'm not scared of getting older to ansewer your question Saucy, because it's only really additional numbers and one more year's worth of experiance. And plus mentality, out look and attitude only have to change the way you want them to. Why conform to society's idea of how you should be, when just being you makes you the happiest?

I worked in Camden for a few years, and there was an attitude from some that a lot of the people who 'dressed up' (workers or visitors) were trying to hold on to their youth/ wern't growing up and taking life seriously. I don't think it's true, I think it's the people who wished they still could 'dress up' and go clubbing who were jelous that they felt they couldn't. These people put their own constrints on them selves by behaving how they though they should, not by what made them happy. Well that's the way I see it.

I hope to still be going into ELC/ Woolies in ten years time and playing with the toys, wonder how they work, to race on shopping trolly's in supermarkets (Which my aunt who is ~36 still does btw), have who can go higher compeitions on the swings. I hope I still laugh at the kids jokes in cartoons as well as the adult ones.

Pretty much there are parts of me that want to grow up, and part's of me that don't, but what ever I end up as, end up doing on the way, as long as I'm happy, I couldn't really give a flying pigs toe nail.

I think the thing about being 16/18 at a club and seeing older people is that you think 'but this is my identity, and my expressions of it'. You don't think this person's mentality is simular to your own only they have accumilated more years and wrinkles than you. Now I feel comforted when I see older people at clubs, because I feel assured that I don't have to give up my 'youth' when I get older.

I salut you Saucy

*saluts*

Blame it on this whole 'youth obbsesses society' thing I keep hearing about, is what I say.

Aw Frog, you've made really emotional!! But not in a bad way
I see my son growing up too, I had him when I was 23 and he's nearly 7 now, and sometimes I just think time goes waaaaay too quickly(remember how the school summer holidays felt like forever? Now that I'm a mum they go by so fast!!)
Need a mad scientist to make me a time machine!!

I'm with you on the time getting faster thing.

I may only be 19 but I remember the summer holidays at school when a day felt like it could be a whole life time and that 6 weeks seemed like forever (until the last day) and then this summer gone I had 4 months (yes four whole months) and they just flew by, just trying to cling onto the days by staying up late and packing as much as possible in yet it was gone in a blink.

I'm not looking forward to 20, I'm not good as using my time wisely and there are so many opportunities I know I have missed and I just want to be able to go back and do them all.

But it's not how old you are, it's how old you feel. Don't let young people get you down... they (we) suck and don't know what we're missing out on.

You make me happy. Twenteen. *dances*

Also, ditto on the cool adults! I have several 25+ year old friends who act just as young as anyone else. Who wants to grow up, anyway? No-one I know. I met a sixty-something year-old guy a month or two ago, still a young hippie at heart. It was the neatest thing, and it really made me rethink age as a specific number.

Though 20 still is just weird for me. Getting a new tens-digit is always a bit wow.

Hey, I'm 44, and still as immature as they come! Still totally clueless, and feeling the years rush by... But, as they say... It's not the years, but the mileage...And, Ironically, the mileage is often dependent on the path you take through life. Those who tend to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders (Yours truly), tend to wear out long before those who simply enjoy the ride...

So enjoy the ride!

Isn't there that saying that goes 'you're only as old as you feel'? Also, one of my mums mates in Israel was turning 50 and to celebrate they had a girly evening with a sleepover too! Also, I wouldn't base your life around numbers-do whatever you want but probably with the age you will grow more responsible naturally.

Growing old is better than the alternative.

Happy Birthday to Tara!

Nothing wrong with being that age, means you've got more experience and aren't as prissy and self centered as younger girls CAN (none of them are here) be.

Happy Birthday m'lovely

Sean is only 17?
Oh, darling, you're but a year older than me! <33 i thought you were 20-something.

30 eh? I expect you'll be getting all broody soon.

I know that feeling exactly, but 20 turned out to be quite a good age. Its a bit funny just starting uni at this age, kinda, especially when all the cute girls are two years younger (and that much less mature than you are). It's 21 that has me really worried. I'm gonna be a proper adult after that one, and its only two months away now... It leaves me feeling that there are a lot of things still to do as a kid before I grow up. But then again, there's not really much I can do about it. Time keeps on tickin, or so they say, and unless one of you geniouses come up with a time machine pretty pronto, then we're all a bit stuck.

As for the thirty thing, Tara, it doesn't sound all that bad, to be honest. When you think about it, with the age you say your mother is then you weren't even a dot on the horizon when she was your age, and you have all that to look forward to several times over yet... or something like that...

Yeah, Sean's awesome like that.

My little sister turned nine today. At her birthday, I felt kind of weird because I recall vividly nine years ago seeing a pink little angel wrapped in blankets in my mom's arms. I then began thinking about how I'm now rounding twenty and so much has happened in the last two years that it seems much longer. Two years ago right now, I was just a naive small-town kid in the middle of my senior year of high school with a bitch girlfriend whos life just began to get complicated (this was also about the time I began to hate New Year's, but that's another story). It's kind of scary. With my health issues, bad habits and worse luck, I don't expect to live terribly long. Also, I haven't really done much with my life and it's kind of depressing. THough I try not to, I dread the future, but I figure, it's just something I have to cope with.

As for having younger friends, I have a bunch of friends still in high school and even some kids in middle school I pseudo-mentor. I also have friends in their twenties. I figure it all evens out and good people are good people regardless of age, so don't worry about in, Your Sauciness.

I'm in the same boat as Cand.. I'll be 23 in May and I keep thinking.. me? 23? That's just not possible! This year, I became a great aunt, will become an aunt again, went through a life-changing event, and I still feel like a little kid at times.

It's not growing older that really bothers me either. It's the feeling that I need to do something different - I need to figure out where my life is going and start nudging it in that direction. Part of me will always be a little kid, but.. the rest of me needs to get my arse in gear!

I think that's the part of "growing up" that scares us. We're drilled from childhood to find some direction and grow up and as we get older, we are faced with trying to find said direction by having people tell us to go to university or not drop out or find some way of establishing ourselves as professionals and make $80k a year. Frankly, this scares the hell out of me.

Interestingly enough, the guys came over tonight and we had a long talk about this. Our thesis was that we have to move on (translation: get the hell out of this town before it kills us) and let the past be the past in more than one respect. I'm now contemplating transferring to UCF with some of my friends so that we can hold onto some form of familiarity while starting fresh in a new city. While I love my university, the fact that I need to get out of north Florida overrides any desire for comfort I have.

I think that being able to accept change and let go of the things you don't need and take responsibility and charge of things is what growing up really means. Other than that, feel free to watch SpongeBob and play with Legos.

Growing up is just a state of mind....we all know people who act far older than they are and not in a good way....and then there are those who may be physically older but are young at heart and mind and untill any one gets to the stage of the mind being willing but the body isnt then enjoy every thing you can...life is to short and is also a contact sport not a spectater sport....

Sorry for the preachyness, i turned 38 on jan 1st and although I fully intend to live forever there is still so much to do and only the rest of my life to do....

Serriously I have been reading a ni=umber of repots that are suggesting that the age or generation gap is closing or dissapereing... some thing to think about...