Acting Your Age... or not...!

When my sister-in-law and I were sixteen, we'd look at Old People messing about and say, why don't they just act their age? Everyone knew you were totally past it by the time you hit thirty, so why were they pretending to be teenagers?

Ha ha. Guess what. I hit thirty and didn't feel Past It at all. In fact I didn't feel that much different inside from when I had at sixteen.

The other day it occurred to me that my eldest daughter is the same age I was when I became engaged to her father. I had a bit of a wibbly moment because how on earth did that happen? Has there been a rip in the space time continuum, flash forwarding me into the future? I mean, come on. No way can my own daughter be that old already!

See, I don't feel old inside (I'm ignoring the dodgy bits of me that wake up each morning feeling about hundred). My daughters have long given up being scandalised by my behaviour on msn (my god, you act sooooo juvenile! is one of the more polite phrases aimed my way) although my son cringes big time when I inadvertently use the word 'cool' in his presence. hehehe. Like I would do that on purpose?? After all, parents don't even know that word, so how can they use it?

No matter whether I'm writing a contemporary romance or one set in the far distant past, my protags emotions are still the driving force of the story. Will my gorgeous, sexy hero and kick ass heroine grow boring and staid in their older years? I don't think so. Age is definitely just a state of mind, and a lot of things don't change nearly so much as we think they will when we're in the middle of the angsty teenage years.

So how old are you inside, where it really matters?!