Why do we feel old?

"Do not fade Orlando, do not wither, do not grow old," (Virginia Woolf)

Once I was sharing a flight with a very interesting person. He was telling me about his life achievements, things he helped to develop and things he invented. I was truly impressed. As it was a charter flight with majority of us travelling to a youth festival, I simply asked if he's traveling somewhere else. But he told me he's going there as well. To present his work and inspire others, I assumed. And so he did, but I also later learned he was only 21 years old, while I was already older than that, except with no achievements of mine to show.

On another occasion my friend was telling me about her hopes and dreams and how things might not be going exactly the way she planned. She finished with "I'm not that young anymore, Tanja!" I felt pretty much the same, except  I was six years her senior.

I remember when my best friend, who's a year younger than me graduated, when I had no idea what will my thesis even be about.

And this is just some of the examples that made me feel old.

Truly feeling old has nothing to do with our actual age, but rather with the stage of our life we are at.

If you wake up every day with so many unfulfillments on your mind, so many things still undone, so many goals unreached. With the feeling that they should have been successfully ticked off your list years ago.

That this would be a great stage of life couple, or five, or 10 years ago, but truly just feels like miserable clinging on right now.

I always felt old. Not in regards to the rest of demographic, but just as a person. I've been the oldest of my siblings. I've become too old for this and that while it was still really acceptable for them.

So you can be only 15, only 11, only 8, and feel old, or too old already. While a person of 75 and more who fulfilled their life can embrace it, being at exactly where they'd want to be.

Age is one thing, but being old is truly the state of mind.