Life: Old But I'm Not That Old

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Firstly, thanks to One Republic for the perfect title for this life themed post, which is something I do want to feature more regularly on this blog. (So would love to hear your feedback - would you like to see more of this type of post?)

So what inspired this post? The other weekend my fiance was looking through his album of "Profile Pictures" on Facebook and we were commenting on how young he looked on his first ever profile picture. I then looked through mine (there were a lot more!) and it was almost like looking through a photo timeline of my life. It wasn't just that my hair is now shorter and I look a bit older, but the profile photos start off as various pictures of me and friends on drunken nights out or at fancy dress parties, then gradually become more, well, sensible. Now my profile pictures either tend to be nicely posed (and sober) ones of me and my friends, nice couple photos or contain my very cute niece or little sister or dog! It made me think about how much my life has changed over the last ten, five and even two years and I feel old. I'm 26 (less than half a year til 27 - eek!), so I'm not that old really. It's quite scary.

Since the aforementioned weekend I've been making mental notes of the things I've said, done or noticed in day to day life that make me feel old. You know you're with me when you can relate to any or all of the following: 

• Your Facebook newsfeed is no longer primarily drunken statuses and photos, rather statuses and photos related to: engagements/weddings/pregnancy/children/buying a house/pets.
• Nights out are now an irregular occurence and on a weekend evening your idea of bliss is to stay in with your fiance/boyfriend/dog/friends/family, eating pizza and watching a film.
• When nights out do happen you're too concerned about a) wasting what could be an otherwise productive day the next day and b) how dreadful your skin will look if you get too intoxicated.
• You look around the club/bar and think, "How did they get in?! They look about 12!". Nope, the depressing reality is they are 18 - and you're not.
• You get excited about purchasing new household appliances, for example, recently I got excited about our new kitchen bin. Yes you heard me right, a kitchen bin. 
• When you see your best friend next, one of the first things you tell her is about your new kitchen bin. She then proceeds to tell you about painting her spare room.
• You have noticeably less money because it goes into the black hole of bills and saving for a car/house/wedding/holiday etc.
• You find yourself wondering, "When I am too old to not be able to pull this off anymore?" when looking at clothes. I'm clinging onto my ripped-and-frayed-but-meant-to-be-that-way denim skirt for dear life. 
• You start writing a "Things to do before [insert age here]" list on the Notes app on your iPhone.

Once I got over the scariness of it all, I realised, what's actually so scary? I didn't make a conscious decision to change, it just kind of happened. I'm not the same person I was when I was 18 and how I spend my spare time is therefore not the same. Then I actually managed to admit to myself... I KIND OF LIKE IT. So I have decided I'm going to embrace being and feeling older - because, as the phrase goes, if you don't laugh about it you'll only cry.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic, is there anyone else that feels like this?!

Beauty Bird xx