Being a twelve-year-old adult
"You'll be so grateful when you're older."
That's what nearly everyone tells me, and I don't not believe them. Yet, I often wonder how much looking very young for my age has not helped but rather disadvantaged me.
Only within the last year or so have people stopped mistaking me for a teenager. Now I can pass for a young twenty-something! Still, I would be carded if I ever went to a bar. (I don't drink.)
An international student I mentored over the summer called it a "flex." She didn't believe me when I showed her my ID.
Mind you, no one has ever harassed me or anything like that just because I sort of look like a child. I've faced the typical catcalling and dumb remarks that a lot of women must stomach. This is more of an existential feeling of smallness.
In college, I lived in a big city. Sometimes rideshare drivers wouldn't understand that I was the one who requested their service because I "looked like a little girl."
Last year I was traveling solo and wanted to be seated at a restaurant, and the staff just walked around me as if I were lost and looking for a guardian until I explicitly bothered them about wanting a table.
I also can't count the number of times I've been told by strangers to smile. I realize this happens to a lot of women (and people of other genders, too), but something tells me that my appearance plays a role here as well.
Sometimes I embrace it. I joke with my friends and colleagues that I'm actually twelve years old. To be honest though, maybe it isn't a joke because I still feel like a preteen in some ways.
You might wonder, why worry about something out of your control? And I can see that. After all, it's not like I chose to have a childlike face. In an ideal world I would be a little bit taller. My height is more or less the average where I live, but for some reason people still tell me I'm short.
On the other hand, I guess I could try to change how I am perceived. I never really got into makeup beyond applying the occasional mascara. Fortunately I was endowed with good skin, seldom having to face a major blemish in the mirror. That also means I never learned how to make myself look, well, more mature. Should I have to try to look more mature for people to consider me an adult though?
Being a "forever student" doesn't help the situation either. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had taken a Real Job instead of going to grad school after college.
It's weird. I'm typing this from an apartment I've inhabited by myself for several years now. I've been financially independent for over six years. I have done some interesting things in my life that would make even some of my male friends think twice. But I still wouldn't be able to command a room like they (or even a lot of the women I know) can.
Some of my friends begin to think that their years are now slipping away from them. I don't. And I don't feel like I am missing out on some typical life experiences at this age like partnership, home ownership, the stereotypical Adult Things. Instead, I'm in this perpetual state of being both An Adult and Not An Adult.
It's like being amused that I've made it to this point while still passing as a twelve-year-old, juxtaposed with the concern that I perhaps identify with this a bit to my own detriment. I don't know if it's something I should try to change or not. And if I do, is only my appearance to blame?