Excuse me, but do you have a senior citizen discount?

For my birthday this year, EM asked if I wanted her to call my friends and have everyone meet up at a bar to celebrate my first quarter of a century. At the time, I had reached what could be called a 'quarter-life crisis' that was compounded with my crippling TOL heartbreak and I reluctantly agreed, but when the time came for said celebration, I felt utterly ill. I wanted this birthday to pass without note, without celebration, but definitely with cake.

Since my weird "oh shit... I'm halfway through my 20s and I haven't accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish" freak-out, I've made a conscious effort to actually live like a 25-year old, and furiously reject the 40-year old woman lurking within my soul. She likes to stay in and go to sleep early, drink in moderation, has her doubts about meeting men in bars, and eat things that won't contribute any more to aforementioned beer gut. I really don't like her.

Of course, I've voiced my insecurities about feeling old to absolutely everyone who will listen to me, but since many of my coworkers and friends and family are older than I am, they usually roll their eyes at me and say things like, "Just wait till you get to 30." I imagine it's tantamount to me raising a skeptical eyebrow at J.R. when she told me that she was totally freaked about turning 23. "It's like that Blink 182 song. 'Nobody likes you when you're 23,'" she had said. I balked.

So, it's normal for people to dismiss my panic, also in part because sometimes I panic about things that really turn out okay. Picking a college, driving to Las Vegas in the middle of the night, global warming, no more coffee in the apartment, the possibility of a guy cheating on me... it's actually surprising that I haven't given myself a heart attack. But it definitely does not help the fact that I still feel... old.

I regularly joke with my friends about the fact that only a few years ago, we would have to pre-party before leaving, and we hardly ever left before 10:30. These days, I'm in bed at 10:30. If I do go out for drinks, I'll hit up happy hour and be done drinking and exhausted by 10. I've caught myself saying things like, "Yeah, the band doesn't go on till 9. I hope they don't play past 11... I've got work the next day," and "He's cute, but he just doesn't have his life together enough for me to want to pursue anything with him," and "No, thanks, if I have more than a couple glasses of wine, I'll wake up with a headache." Every time I say something along those lines, I get this shocked expression on my face and stare blankly while I mull over my soon-to-be geriatric tendencies. Sometimes, people think I'm having an aneurysm.

All of these revelations lead me to wonder... just how did I get so old?