What's My Age Again?

A guy watched me teaching my martial arts class today, and afterwards asked me a bunch of questions about the class and the system as a whole, trying to sort out if it'd be a good choice for either his son or his nephew, both of whom had watched the class with him. Over the course of the conversation, how long I'd been training came up, and I told him "uh, something like sixteen years" (actually, probably closer to seventeen or eighteen, but I can never do the math quickly enough when someone asks).

"Oh," he said, "so you must've started when you were a teenager, huh?"

"I was six, actually," I said. And then he was embarrassed, and we moved on.

It was kind've a weird thing to have happen. People on the phone have been assuming I must be in my thirties since I was about fourteen, but in person it's always been the opposite - I still get asked to flash my ID for R-rated movies every once in a while.

It was kind've nice, too, though. I've been feeling a little less than capable lately, and as though I'm too young and stupid and inexperienced to be getting into all the stuff I've been getting into lately. Having someone assume, after watching me for an hour, that I'm older than I really am was actually something of an ego-boost.

I don't know if I'm really ready to be a grown-up.