When my parents left me with empty pizza cartons and a barrage of boxes it dawned on me: I was living alone. For real. My first solo apartment. I was now fully in control, felt that life was starting and that only I held the wheel, which was very scary; I suddenly maintained a full-time job, a bank loan of 150000 Swedish crowns (appx. 19000 US dollars) and I'd just moved far away from my parents.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. The asymmetrical, speckled black-and-dark-blue walls seemed to tell me I wasn't welcome, and that I was out of my depth. Everything was eerily silent. I longed for what I thought was home, stopped that thought and got angry with myself for realising that home was actually there, right where I was. Alone. The silence clogged my ears.

Today I found that X had written this post on how one can be attacked by people because of your age. I recommend that you read it, as it is one of the few really good posts I've read for quite some time. I've commented on it, so I won't waste more of those words here.

Still, I have thoughts to add.

Are we really doomed to be judged because of our physical age? Will I, as I face retirement from work, hear some eighty-year-old squabble in the background about how things were much harder when she/he were my age? Should I look down on children because of their relatively young age? Should people even add their age onto their curriculum vitae when applying for jobs?

I hear the distant echo of a former boss who - while I was eating lunch and she was preparing hers - told me about how spaghetti should be cooked and how I should start thinking about having a family as I'd "mature" and become "assured from my self". From my self. In retrospect, I believe that I can see how her psychopathic self might interpret her family's mere existence as self-assuring...

People who look down on others by behaving like cretins ought not to think of age, but of how they are perceived by others in doing so; actions don't age. They are the only things that truly define you.