This Growing Baby

I'm 25

I'm 25. I am the same distance in age to 15- and 35-year-olds. I can relate better with 15-year-olds. After all, I remember what it was like to be in their shoes and have no frame of reference in the other age direction. I was at the grocery store last weekend and as I approached the checkout, I recognized the grocery bag helper as a young man I babysat when I was a teenager and a college student. I commented in disbelief at how quickly time passes, "I used to babysit that boy, and now he's 6 foot tall." The clerk quickly replied, "How old are you?" I sheepishly told her, and she gasped--"you don't look that old!"

Would I look older if I wore a badge on my sleeve with all of the momentous life occasions I've surpassed? How old would I look if she had known I have been married for 4 years and dating my husband for 7? And if she knew I've been out of high school for 7 years? What if I told her I'm expecting my first child? And would she think I looked younger than 25 if she knew I'm an attorney?

I might have brushed off the clerk's commentary had I not been asking myself daily what little old me is doing living in this grown up world. I play an adult role in this world, in my job, and in my marriage. I'm in a stage of life that requires maturity, but my baby face is doing me a disservice. There are times when I feel I lack credibility because of my terribly youthful appearance. For instance, when my clients tell me they've been to more court hearings than I have (but this is usually an indicator of their own lack of maturity, or at least a lack of ability to commit a crime without being caught). I'm mature, sure. Confident, however, is not something I've ever been accused of being. My big revelation (I know, all of this from a grocery store clerk's 5 word sentence) is that in order to gain credibility and fill the adult shoes I'm walking in, I have to be confident. That's where this blog comes in.

In the same weekend as the clerk told me I failed to look my age, I read an excerpt from a book titled "100 Ways to Build Self Confidence." In all of it's self-help glory, the book (or rather, the author) suggests to go back to a time in your life when you felt confident and replay that time and those feelings of confidence in your mind over an over again. So in thinking all the way back to the times when I felt most confident, there seemed to have been a common thread--writing. Strange? Maybe. But it makes sense if you think about it. If you do things that are therapeutic, release your creative juices, and give you a finished product, you're bound to build confidence or, at the very least, pride in something you've created. Doesn't Pride go hand in hand with it's sister, Confidence?

I anticipate a swarm of confidence (in the form of pride and motherly wisdom) when my baby arrives in August. But for now, these letters on the screen will give me pride in something and perhaps it's a lofty expectation, but I hope it will help me take pride and have confidence in my roles as wife, daughter, sister, friend, and attorney.