It's been a while/Yes, I'm young, get over it

Hi Friends.

So, I haven't blogged in a while. Between being disappointed with my outcome for NaNoWriMo, the holidays, and various other factors, I've been excusing myself from blogging for a while. Well, today (and yesterday), I am home due to illness. I figured what better way to break up the marathon of Big Bang Theory episodes than to write a little bit.

Something that happened to me in the intervening time between blog posts: I turned 30 earlier this month. And it seems like ever since I turned thirty, people I don't really know are going out of their way to tell me how young I am. I expect it from my family members and similarly situated friends - blah blah, thirty is nothing, blah blah - but as an attorney, it's a little off-putting to have people tell me how young I am all the time.

I'm not sure if it's hubris or just general annoyance, but it gets frustrating when I walk into a consultation and the first thing out of my potential client's mouth is "Wow, you're young." Well, yes, I'm younger... than you are. That's the case probably 75% of the time, if not more, especially with my estate planning clients. But what gives people the urge to just blurt it out?

There's a lot of assumption in that statement. "Wow, you're young." It's true: I don't have too many wrinkles and I somehow have yet to find my first gray hair. I haven't been bestowed with the wisdom that having children gives you yet, and I know becoming a parent is something that really causes someone to change and learn a lot. But, by the age of 30, I'd like to think I've lived a little.

I've survived the first three years of marriage (as has my husband). I've had a few rotten jobs and been concerned about making ends meet. I've written and self-published a book. I've had my "top of the world" times and a few times of ill health. I've survived 19 years of schooling, the bar exam, and periodic unemployment. But especially in the last year, I've lived out the responsibility of having to fix other people's problems for them - and they've been some pretty big problems.

Yes. I'm young. But there's no need to try to put me in my place by pointing it out. Because most of the time, people are coming to me for help. And those 19 years of schooling, plus my own experiences, have given me some pretty powerful tools to work with.

Overall, though, I'm pretty blessed; most of the people who tell me how young I am at first end up retaining me anyways, so I must project some kind of air of competence. Short of costume makeup and spray-on gray hair, I don't think the comments are going to stop anytime soon. (Just once, I'd kind of like to retort with... "Wow, you're old," but I don't think that'd go over too well.) How do you deal with it when people initially try to write you off with comments about your age?