Looking young gets old, you guys. Yesterday, I met with some teachers at a school we tutor at and they asked if I was one of the high school students. As in, a 14-to-17-year-old. Awesome.
I’m sort of tired of being told, “You’ll be happy someday,” and reassured, “Well, as soon as you opened your mouth, I knew you were older.”
Maybe I will be happy when I look 22 as one of the 45-year-old Organic Chemistry Tutors in the alumni, and people mistake me for a college student. Maybe I’ll be thrilled to get carded in my forties. Maybe nothing will delight me more than hearing, “You don’t look old enough to have a daughter in high school!” someday.
But for now? It’s really difficult to imagine that when anyone meets me, they’re thinking, “Good Lord, how young IS that girl? How can she work at a high school?”
Most of the time, I pretend I don’t mind; I convince myself that being mistaken for an under-16-year-old-after-curfew at the grocery store is funny, not awfully annoying.
Mostly, though, it’s sort of a confidence killer. I feel doubted and patronized. I feel paranoid that when a new colleague meets me, she’s surprised at how young I look. It’s all rather annoying.
Okay, I needed to get that out of my system. I hate to be negative and vent here, but don’t worry, there’s more.
It’s been a rough week. My nose piercing almost closed on Tuesday and if you saw my Tweets on Wednesday, you might suspect that it was a less-than-stellar day for me. I’m doing better –being new at a job is just ridiculously overwhelming. Especially when you realize your job is actually twice as big as you thought it was and involves regularly working 10 hour days, weekends, and overnights.
I don’t want my job to be my life, so that might be a problem. (And a whole other blog post.)
Other than that, the people I work with are awesome and say things to me like, “Everyone who’s met you has loved you!” and, “You’re going to love it here!” How could I not love that?
Overwhelmed and exhausted, I’m still going to give this a chance.
Leave a Reply