I am 25-34

Some weeks after I retired to stay-at-home motherhood, I decided to join a couple different consumer opinion panels. One is even "Infant Division." I figured it would be something I could put on my resume for this SAHM phase of life so that it wouldn't look like I was doing absolutely nothing related to my degree field during this yet undetermined period of preferred unemployment. Anytime someone asks me what I got my degree in, the answer is "Family & Consumer Sciences...[brief pause during look of bewilderment]...Home Ec." (It's one of those fields that felt the need to have a more politically correct name some time back.) So, even though I am daily practicing most aspects of my degree field by doing what SAHMs and working moms alike do daily, I thought my participation in these consumer opinion things would be a nice addition to my very brief resume when it comes time to rejoin the workforce one day. Tonight I took a survey about wireless providers. When I got to the question that asked your age range, the pointer immediately gravitated to the 18-24 button. Oops! I'm 27. I caught myself and moved to the 25-34 button. That felt odd. And it shouldn't have felt odd, as I am three years into the range, for crying out loud! It's not like I just had my 25th birthday or anything. I find it very interesting that my mind seems to have done a lock-down at age 24. Why 24? There's not that much difference between 24 and 27. Why does 27 seem so different? Maybe it's not so much that 24 seems so different than 27, but that 18-24 seems so different than 25-34. And that IS different! There is SO much life change from 18-22 or so. But then somewhere around 23, 24, 25ish, life starts settling a little and you kind of coast for a few years. I guess I feel like I started coasting during my early 20s, and therefore my perceived age stopped at 24. There was something about turning 26 last year that seemed unusual. Having to admit you weren't exactly "mid-twenties" anymore, depending on how you look at it. I argued that we were mid-twenties as long as we were on either side of 25. But that logic confirms that I turned late-twenties this year. 27 is not adjacent to 25. I am 27 years old. I have a kid. I have a mortgage. I am moving my family across the country next month. I am 25-34. I wonder if when I am 32, I will realize that I started coasting in this age bracket at age 27...that it's happening right now. And then I will feel stuck at age 27. It will be interesting to see if that continually happens from age bracket to age bracket throughout life.