Since early adulthood it has been my habit, at the start of a new year, to begin identifying myself as the age I will be at my next birthday and to tell people that I’m that age, even though that natal celebration isn’t until June. <\/p>\n
In one week I will turn 42. However, I notice — have observed for months — that I’ve been careful to tell people I’m 41. When someone mentioned the other day that I might as well say I’m 42 since I will be next week, my reaction was mild surprise, as in, “Really! So soon?” <\/p>\n
Some people celebrate their 39th birthday forever (or some other arbitrary number). I’ve joked with my husband in the past that when I turn 42, I will remain that age. After all, it’s the inverse of my birthday (24), which I think is neat (and in case I ever forget my birthday I can use it as a mnemonic); furthermore, 42 is<\/em> the answer to life, the universe, and everything<\/a> according to Douglas Adams, and he’s pretty cool. <\/p>\n Hmm. I used to be eager to reach the next year. Now, not so much. Is this internalized ageism? Or am I simply content to be who\/what\/where I am? Something to ponder over the next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since early adulthood it has been my habit, at the start of a new year, to begin identifying myself as the age I will be at my next birthday and to tell people that I’m that age, even though that natal celebration isn’t until June. In one week I will turn 42. However, I notice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10872,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/10872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}