What Age Do You Imagine?

I recently listened to a podcast that suggested you could discover something about yourself by considering whether you more often imagine yourself to be young (a teenager or twenty-something just getting started in the world) or whether you think about yourself at the end of your life looking back and imparting wisdom.

So I wonder what it says about me that I lack the imagination to think about myself at any other age than what I am today?  I certainly remember being young, in high school or college, being a not-so-young parent, struggling to juggle a career and kids. But I really can't imagine being any of those things again. And I often find myself surprised when my Facebook friends have birthdays to discover how young some of them are. How many years that have yet to work. Apparently, I'm in denial about age in general.


And even though I accept that I'm now the matriarch of our little clan, I don't think of myself as old. Older yes, advanced middle age for sure, but definitely not old. Like most of my friends, I joke and complain about getting older and what it does to my body and occasionally my memory. But I struggle to envision myself being really old, and all that goes with it, like perhaps losing my independence before I'm ready. People often say that one of the beauties of youth is believing that you'll live forever. I don't know if that belief ever really goes away until you're faced with a serious illness. Blessedly, I lack the imagination to envision myself as old.


I guess the bottom line is that I'm content being just the age that I am. I'll continue to do my best to forestall the bad parts of aging and be grateful for the benefits of having reached this stage of a more leisurely contemplative life.