We're All 16 Years Old On the Inside

Turns out, there’s no such thing as an adult. Yeah, I was shocked, too. I’m going to be 30 this year and I keep thinking that, for sure, I’ll feel like an adult by then. I mean, I’m married, I have a kid, I run a business – those are all real adult-like things – so why do I still feel like a child?

Why? Because I am still a child - or teenager, I suppose. Every adult is. It's my theory that we stop progressing socially after age 16. We have more responsibilities, maybe. And perhaps a more mature perspective. But after our 16^th birthday, we’re all basically still 16.

This theory first began when I had a conversation with a 60 year old woman about an experience she had going to her 40 year high school reunion. She ran into an old boyfriend – a relationship that ended kindly enough, but she married soon after high school and they hadn’t kept in touch. He confided in her that she had made him feel important and special and felt she was his first real, true friend. This wasn’t a romantic gesture, as he was happily married, but his life had been impacted so significantly by her friendship. As she told me this about this experience, I heard this 60 year old woman turn 16 years old in her voice, her mannerisms, her glee that a boy she had liked had really, actually liked her back, and that, in some way, she still mattered. In the end, isn’t that all a 16 year old girl really wants? A drivers’ license, and a boy to think she’s special.

The theory was further solidified when my mom, probably 50-ish years old at the time, said to me, in complete seriousness, “I know I look old, but I still feel 16 on the inside.” To this day, my mother doesn’t look old or her age. And we talk to each other often about boys and body image and stuff that stresses us out. We share clothes when I visit and shop together. And when I lived with her, it was like living with a roommate, not a mom. (Best roommate ever, BTW – she never asked me to pay my portion of rent and she always let me eat her food.)

Then, the theory was proven when my husband, Tyler, and I had separate altercations with “adults” on the very same day. He, in person - A colleague, 15 years his senior, yelled in his face about something Tyler did not do, and then stomped away without giving Tyler an opportunity to explain himself. And this was not the first time an interaction had gone this way. And me, via social media (that damn social media) – as an administrator on a support group page, where several women got in a cat fight, began name calling, and proceeded to private message me seven times over the course of the day to tell on the others and demand they be banned from the group. Again, approximately the third time something like this had happened to me.

Tyler and I nearly ripped all our hair out that day. Here we were, two kids, wondering what the hell was wrong with people – adults, even. One expects this kind of behavior in middle and high school. But, among people with respectable professions, higher education, and middle and high schoolers of their own? Are they serious? The only explanation for such behavior is that they’re 16 years old. Socially, they’re juniors in high school, they’ve just started seriously dating, emotions are confused and exaggerated, and they must not be told what to do or they’ll slam their bedroom door and paint their nails black. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I hypothesize that this theory will be beneficial for me during future altercations with “adults.” I can remind myself as they’re blasting insults at me or my husband, or hiding behind their computer complaining, that inside, they’re 16 and the way a 16 year old reacts may be irrational, but it’s the only way they know how to communicate. And I can be kindly, secretly condescending as I take the higher ground and attempt to turn my own insides a year older.