i do not know what causes my age incongruence. i feel dissatisfied and upset with the age i’ve grown into. maybe i am afraid of change, maybe my development was stunted somehow. a personal theory of mine is that my brain is somehow not aware of my aging. i’ve never perceived myself as the age others have assigned to me. not in the sense that i occasionally regress ages, but in the sense that i’ve been stuck at the same one for years. nothing has shifted in my mind to tell me “you’ve grown up, you’re mature now.”

i bite my tongue and swallow the tears. i can’t expect everyone to understand me, and it is best i not expect anyone to understand me.