What’s Your Self-Image Age?

My maternal grandmother was a beautiful woman in her youth, and lucky to be born at the right time for her looks—she was petite, slender, a bit flat-chested, and had a lovely oval face. With a cap of short, dark hair, she was the perfect picture of femininity for the 1920s in the US; the image of a flapper. If she'd smoked, her ideal accessory would have been one of those foot-long cigarette holders.

By the time I knew her she was still beautiful but looked like...well, somebody’s grandmother. And she occasionally told me, “I get up in the morning, go into the bathroom to wash my face, and look up into the mirror and say, ‘Who is that old lady?’ “

She passed this trait on to my aunt. Once, when my aunt was out shopping, a kid came racing by on a skateboard. This kid’s friend yelled, “Watch out, stupid! You almost hit that old lady!” Naturally, my aunt stopped and looked around to find the poor woman who had been so endangered.

When my grandmother looked in the mirror, was she surprised that she wasn’t twenty? Or thirty? What age did she think she was supposed to be?

I’ve been wondering about this lately, because I think the issue runs deeper than mere looks. In fact, I’ve begun to think our self-image coalesces around some particular age, and then never really progresses much; there’s some ‘age’ in the back of our mind that seems to feel right, and most of us, like my grandmother, are surprised to find we are no longer that age.

I know what my Self-Image Age is. It’s seventeen. Old enough to drive, but not old enough to buy cigarettes legally, and certainly not old enough to vote or drink. I’m constantly surprised when policemen call me “Sir” rather than “You little punk.”

This, of course, is how I manage to continue being so immature and irresponsible. I’ve still got my whole life ahead of me, and, in general, I think I’m unusually gifted and precocious…for someone who hasn’t even started college yet.

This also explains why I’m always finding new bands I like. I’m told by the music industry that responsible adults do not listen to any band they didn’t hear before the age of thirty. But it’s okay. I’m seventeen.

I’m acquainted with people whose Self-Image Ages are in their twenties or thirties, and I know a few people who will never really come into their own until they hit their mid-sixties and their Inner Grumpy Old Men are allowed out.

If I were in the field of psychology, I’m sure I could turn this half-baked idea of Self-Image Age into a new therapeutic modality. Why spend all that time trying to heal your Inner Child when what you might really need is to heal your despairing Inner Forty-Four-Year-Old? And why not deal with your Inner Forty-Four-Year-Old while you’re still twenty-five? Or why not get your Self-Image Age to grow the hell up? Why do hypnotic regression when you could do hypnotic progression? The possiblities are endless.

Alas for the field of psychology, I’m too busy writing fiction. And this blog. But the next time you read something of mine and notice the inevitable flaws, remember: it’s pretty good for a teenager.