Who/what/where/when/why

Sometimes I forget how old I am. I feel as though I have frozen at seventeen and never aged since, so I am often surprised, when asked, at the digit that pops out of my mouth. "I'm twenty," I told my new roommates recently. One of them (I'll call her Ky) smiled sweetly. "I'm eighteen," she said. Her roommate, Runner, chimed in, "I'm nineteen." "Me too," added Jordan.

Now, I realize that all these numbers are so close to mine that it would be absurd to lose sleep over my age. However, it hit me quite suddenly at that moment that I am, supposedly, growing up. It is a concept I often find quite difficult to grasp. This chronic youth is perhaps perpetuated by the frequency with which my age has been mistaken.

On my eighteenth birthday I had a doctor's appointment ("Happy birthday to me..."). The doctor was very friendly and asked how old I was, where I went to school, etc. When I answered, "I'm eighteen today", he blinked and did a double take. "You're eighteen? Wow, I..." he stumbled. "Well, that means you haven't been baking in the sun. You have a very...youthful face. Happy birthday!"

I also had the great fortune to get braces (for the third time) shortly before I turned eighteen. The first Sunday after they'd been put on, an older sister at church stopped dead when I smiled at her. "You got braces again!" she said. "They make you look even younger!"

This summer I worked as a day camp counselor for children anywhere from six years old to the terrible teens. I cannot tell you the number of times someone grabbed me, asked why I wasn't with my counselor, then noticed the gaggle of eight-year-olds following behind me and mumbled, "Oh. I'm sorry...I thought you were a camper."

I have always felt younger than I am, and younger than all my peers—regardless of their age—and this sensation of perpetual youth gives me a strange feeling that I never quite belong anywhere. Though I know I can handle the challenges of attending a university, I feel somewhat out of my league among other college students. More than a year of attending young single-adult church meetings at home and at school has yet to feel familiar. Conversely, I certainly don't feel like a highschool student anymore. The life and concerns of the average sixteen-year-old seem foreign to me.

And so I am stuck in limbo, in a strange in-between state, and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. How do I bridge the gap? One often hears that these years are some of the most important in a person's life. So many decisions determining so many different futures all rest on this topsy-turvy sliver of time. Such a realization makes me feel yet younger, less mature, less equipped. What crazy person decided to trust someone like me with these decisions?!? I can only hope that my decisions are the right ones. And so I embark to bridge the gap, to figure out who/what/where/when/why I want to be.

I am Holly. Holly Something.