(Note: FYI - this is the same essay as April 19th)
I wonder if anyone can remember the first time that we realized we are not infallible; that we are mortal.
One of our first big disappointments may be a day like the one when we find out Santa Claus does not exist. Watching a Superhero and being total that we can't do it ourselves is another revelation. We must learn that certain things are 'magical' or really that most things like this only exist in our imagination.
Most parents spare us this loss for as long as they can. Those who shelter us from the responsibilities that they know await us as adults, try to let us enjoy the few carefree childhood years for as long as we can.
Our mortality is not anywhere in our thoughts when we become Teenagers. Most of us are pretty happy to FINALLY have passed this important point and hope that our days as a little kid are over at last.
Something changes when we go from junior school to High School. This is a big transition and one that everyone recognizes as important. No one much thinks about life as anything but full of possibilities as we 'move up' to our next school.
Shortly after, for Spanish or Mexican girls/women the Quinceanera Coming of Age Ceremony takes place when they are 15 years of age. It is comparable to a debutante's coming out party.
Sweet Sixteen on the 16th Birthday, acknowledges that a girl is growing up, but there's not a chance that she feels old at this age.
By 18, another important year towards adulthood can coincide with debuts in high society even today, and perhaps entry into university or college after high school graduation. We are pretty much considered adults or certainly on the threshold of adulthood.
Various other personal events in the lives of boys and girls take place en route to becoming men and women. Many of these involve the additional decisions we are allowed to make for ourselves. The more choices we begin to make, tentatively at first (if we are honest) and with more confidence as we go on, begin to prepare us for making almost all of our own decisions as adults.
The experiments en route with going out, having a drink, have a boyfriend or girlfriend, driving a car and many other things small and large, help us to develop the confidence to survive independently on our own.
I still wonder however, what the crucial turning point comes where the guy or girl who was reckless, intrepid, fearless, dare devil, ready to sky dive or jump off a cliff on a dare, realizes that were they to do this, they might literally either injure themselves pretty badly or might even die.
Maybe the Actuaries know and consequently reduce car insurance rates because reckless driving, probably along with reckless drinking, partying and pulling all-nighters, decreases by a certain point in life.
Usually the age group of 16 to 21 pay the highest car insurance since they are considered to have the greatest number and most severe accidents. Age seems however, to be a deciding factor in automobile insurance only up till the age 25 and also is lower for someone 25 and married.*
The age of 25 today however, may not help in accessing the maturing process since many people are both unmarried and in school for much longer than were earlier generations and some psychologists increase the age of young adults upward quite regularly.
I suspect that most people are considered mature adults by the age of 30. By 30, we could look back 10 years to our 20's and realize we have been considered adult for, at least 10 years. Perhaps by this time also, we have experienced a death of someone in your family, such as a grandparent, This would have forced us to acknowledge the finality of this personal loss, which we all experience eventually. I am not sure.
I do know however, that a tiny bit of carefree innocence leaves with the realization of your own eventual mortality and it sobers us a little whether we acknowledge it or not.
By 40, if you haven't taken on most of the responsibilities of an Adult, and 'settled down' few people are willing to make excuses for your postponing adulthood any longer. In fact, they might speak about you quite negatively, expressing at the very least, disappointment.
In 1900, by 40 you were reaching the average life expectancy of 46 and were almost finished your life, you would probably have done almost all you could be expected to have done, including having raised a family by then.
Increased life expectancies to 76 years of age for males, and longer for females, have made the 40's less threatening. The actual 40th Birthday however, if noted is not as happily celebrated as the preceding years were.
Some women, may never acknowledge a 40th birthday. Some would prefer to stop the clock at 30, until embarrassingly their children become chronologically almost the same age.
With 30 year longer life expectancies than in 1900, some propose that we consider ourselves old at 65 or when we retire.**
Meanwhile a study says that women feel old at 29; men feel old at 58. Go figure.***
Most people reaching the age of 65 today, particularly Baby Boomers are probably never going to acknowledge old age. Some say, that in our mind's we never pass 39 years of age. Maybe 39 is our emotional age despite our chronological age.
Life marches on regardless of how we choose to view it and mark its passages. When we teach ourselves to celebrate a little every day, I think we make it possible to appreciate and enjoy the special beauty each day gives.
As a saying goes: "...Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present."****
*http://www.contingencies.org/septoct07/age.pdf Age Rating in Auto Insurance: Actuarial Equity or Unfair Discrimination. **http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_age
***http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/08/how-old-is-old-women-say-29_n_921025.html
**** This quote comes from a 1902 book called 'Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday: Garden Delights" by Alice Morse Earle. The full quote often reads: "The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present."
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