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I suppose I was cognizant of the "Peter Pan Syndrome" at a very young age; I was the child who was in a perpetual state of freezing her girlhood. At twenty-six years of age, it might seem strange to be writing on the topic of "growing old," however, my preoccupation with this phenomenon is what I feel gives me ground to do so.

Someone once told me that the greatest difference in age is between 17 and 21 years of age. Granted, this was told to me by a 21 year old, who was surely biased and inexperienced and hardly 'aged' by any means. I took his words and allowed them to cultivate me during that four-year span, until I was twenty-five, and on the cusp of what I have been told is my "quarter-life crisis." During the course of my twenty-fifth year of life, I felt like a completely different person from who I was at twenty-four, even though a 12-month passage of time shouldn't elicit such a personal change. But it does.

What we gain with age is the luxury of reflection: who we once were, what we are now, who we could be, and dare I say it, who we will eventually become. At twenty-six, I'd like to think that the morals and values I hold so dear will weave their way into the fabric of who I'll be come in future years. I so desire that the hopeful teenager I once was, will carry into my thirties, and the secure thirty-something I will one day be, will comfort me when I'm in my eighties.

Growing old, to me, is more about the mental than the physical. I spent my childhood wanting to preserve who I was because I was happy over myself as an individual. Call me crazy, but a child can be aware of her moral fiber... so much so, that she would want to carry it into adulthood. Comparatively speaking, I am quite young in the grand scheme of life, but I do know that I look forward to meeting myself as an older adult. The "Peter Pan Syndrome," as it were, means more along the lines of self-preservation, than anything else. This is something that has come with age: Knowledge that your core can remain intact over the passage of time. I will hold fast to this as I age, and realize that maybe "Never Never Land" is a wonderful place, but there's so much more out there.

Learn more about this author, Christina Loffredo.
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