24 still feels young...

Though I have now turned twenty four, I don't feel as old as I will when I turn twenty five. ...but not for the obvious reason you are thinking (25 comes after 24, thus being & feeling older is inevitable). It has to do with 24 being an even number. Let me explain. Even makes me feel young. Odd makes me feel old.
My sixteenth birthday was a BIG deal. I officially entered the dating world and I obtained a driver's license. Two of the most important things to a 16 year-old girl. I spent my birthday in Hawaii. And while all of that is a BIG deal, turning 16 did not make me feel older. I felt like a really lucky 15-year-old with all these added perks.

Now when I turned 17--nothing spectacular, especially comapared to the previous birthday. But I felt older. Much older.

18. Big deal. Officially an adult, graduated high school and embarked on a new life of my own. All really big things. So I should begin to feel old, right? Not really. I didn't feel older. Just felt like a 17 year old adult.

19. Now I began to feel myself age just a bit. Maybe it's because this is the age that young men in our church go on a 2 year mission and the missionaries have always seemed so OLD and so MATURE to me. Even when I was 21 and 22, I still felt younger than them (I now feel older than them...finally. Maybe it's because we help feed them now).

...OR maybe it was because I got MARRIED at nineteen!!!
20. Even though I entered into the TWENTIES, I still felt 19. I was a little dissapointed that I couldn't call myself the nineteen year old bride anymore. ...a teen bride. I can think of a couple people that are laughing and rolling their eyes at the teen bride comment (ahem, Mom).

21. Now I began to feel old. Finally the age to legally consume as much alcohol as I could imagine. Oh wait, I have never once had a sip of alcohol. And that is the truth.

....this was the year I graduated college, started a career, and got pregant. A BIIIIG year. So I felt a little older, rightly so.

22. Big year. I had a baby, continued my career (now from home), put my hubby in law school, but I still felt 21.

23. Nothing huge. But saying 23 made me feel old.

24. I still feel 23. I feel young, yet I feel somehwat accomplished. I'm 24 with a hubby of almost five years, a soon-to-be (July) two year old, a degree, and a career [from home]. For the next 360 days or so, I'll remind myself I'm closer to 20 than to 30. Once I turn the big 2-5, I am sure I will feel a bit older. But until then, here's to 24!