Almost a Senior in college but I feel way younger

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Maybe it's because I can't drive and spent most of college cooped up in my room watching YouTube videos... but yeah I read stories about 18 yr olds going off to college, and I'm all... I feel like I'm at their level of maturity, even though I'm 21. I mean, a lot of them have even had experiences I haven't had (road trips with friends, camping, holding a job that they applied for). Sometimes it takes me a beat to realize that I'm older than them.

I mean, I know I've changed a lot since I was eighteen, but when I was eighteen, I was seen as more immature in many ways than my classmates. :^/

So I feel like an overgrown kid and I'm kind of having a quarter life crisis, cuz I really should feel older than I do...

There are some ways that I've been told that I'm an "old soul"... I guess in the vein of critical/analytical thought about certain topics, it's true that I tend to think harder than people my age. And many of my friends are actually older (as in in their 30s). But it's bothered me recently that I've noticed that I'll read YA novels about 18 year olds going off to college, and think... I've passed that milestone. Also, the characters sometimes feel older than me even though they're quite a bit younger at this point. :T

I felt this way a lot in college too. There was much I wish I could have experienced while I was there, but never did due to a combination of being slow to complete classwork (screw my executive dysfunction!) and difficulty finding the right people to connect and become close with, as I was the only autistic in my relatively small major at the time, and there was no autistic/neurodiverse student club there dispite it being a good-sized university.

Guess it's kind of an aspie thing. A good long term memory causes slower changing of memory structures and your way of thinking. Just stay the way you are! Many people forget that life should be fun too.

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I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!