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4th March - I’ll never be a young woman

This always happens when I take the teenager to university open days: I feel some combination of wistfulness and unsettled. 

Partly it is just a realisation of ageing and opportunities. All these kids are embarking on their own journey and discovering independence and all possibilities are open to them: any course, any location, to pursue any career in any country, with the chance to be who they want to be as they leave home and go it alone. Being thirty years older, those freedoms and possibilities are no longer endless. I had my time for that and it has passed. Hence going to these places makes me feel regretful. 

To make matters worse, there are young women everywhere. Even though I am ancient and middle aged, I don’t really feel any different in my head from when I was a student and my mental picture of my inner woman is, I would guess, about that age. Wherever I look on these days I see outfits I like, or hairstyles and so many feelings of ‘want to be her’ or want to be like her, look like her, confident and chatty like her, happy like her. 

The reality is that I can never be any of those things nor anything like any of those women. It’s the same as age closing the door on many of those life possibilities. Life and age has happened and no amount of transitioning is ever going to change that. It is too late. 

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