I’m 26 years old. Well, the beard helps me look 26; without it, my delicate mug is hardly pushing 19.
Patchy facial hair notwithstanding, I don’t feel 26. Not at all. I don’t feel like I’m in the second half of my twenties, and most of the time I really don’t know what age I feel.
18? 21? 4 1/2?
Regardless the flippant number, I do know one thing: I feel at least 5 years behind the rest of humanity. Behind in every possible way.
Every other representative of 1987 just seems eons beyond my feeble 26-year existence.
5 Years Behind: Physically
I’m a weak man. No, but really – I have zero upper body strength. I still can’t conceptualize how human beings can accomplish even a single pull-up; it boggles my mind.
In middle school and high school, the football players always got to use the weight room; I never did. And since over half my class played football, most all the other boys in my grade got bigger and beefier year after year, and I always stayed the same, seemingly shrinking beside their broadening shoulders and bulging biceps.
Even throughout college and my post-college existence, I’ve physically felt at least 5 years behind my peers – well, aside from running.
Last year I ran my first half-marathon, and I’m aiming for another 13.1-mile go in the fall. I’m currently lifting weights a couple times each week to supplement all the dang cardio that reduces my waistline month by month.
And yet I still feel so far behind everyone in that gym. Can only consistently work out for two weeks at most before I despair and skip a few days.
It’s probably why I usually work out at 11pm when there’s only 7 other people in the building, including the yellow-shirted cleaning crew with fuzzy dusting wands and dinosaur vacuums. Whenever I examine everyone inside that gym, especially the guys in their shameless tank-tops, all I see are the chiseled bodies that I don’t have.
It’s like being surrounded by all those guys in high school nearly a decade ago. All I feel in those moments is that where I am now physically is where they all were at least 5 years ago. If not longer.
5 Years Behind: Socially
Far beyond the physical, I feel inherently behind the human race in the realm of relationships. Despite the relational progress I’ve certainly made from moving across the country, living with other guys my age, finding a church, plugging into a life group, tutoring youth, and connecting deeper with kids at camp, I still feel so far behind.
It’s like I’m only just now hitting the point where I should’ve resided years ago. Take camp for instance – most every counselor last summer was still in college. Why didn’t I work at a youth camp in college? What was I doing during my lonely meaningless college summers?
While working with kids these last three years, I’ve often marveled over them – how these mere seventh graders exhibit infinitely superior levels of self-confidence among their peers than I do today at 26, let alone when I was their age.
Forget 5 years; maybe I’m actually 14 years behind humanity.
Just last week, I had an opportunity to convene with my life group for a bountiful potluck dinner. And yet I didn’t show. That night, after a hard isolating week, I was beyond overwhelmed by the notion of standing alongside any one of them and undoubtedly feeling inferior in their presence.
Despite all the relational progress of the last three years, I’m convinced where I am now is where everyone else enjoyed life at least 5 years ago.
5 Years Behind: Spiritually
I accepted Christ at a very young age. Somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. And yet I wasn’t baptized until just last year – at 25. At least a 15-year gap.
I didn’t feel at home in a church until 2011.
I’ve put academics and pornography and the arduous pursuit of friendship ahead of God.
I’ve never gone on a missions trip.
Praying aloud in groups freaks me out.
I don’t know how to reconcile dozens of things I read in Scripture — from God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to God’s allowing numerous “heroes” like Jacob and David and Solomon to marry multiple wives to the very existence of Satan.
I often wonder if my faith is genuine. Whether I’m truly loving my neighbor as myself.
Whether I even love myself like I should.
Considering the many facets of my faith-crisis, I wonder how every other Christian my age eclipsed such conflicts at least 5 years ago.
5 Years Behind All Over
Why do the rest of my peers at church and on Facebook and in coffee shops get this thing called life?
Why is everyone either physically fit or physically confident of themselves?
Why is everyone so socially normal?
Why do large groups still cause my introverted blood to bubble?
Why do one-on-one conversations with physically/spiritually accomplished individuals induce my stuttering and blushing countenance?
Why do I receive phone calls from friends and family members alike and instinctively not want to pick up?
Why is my first instinct in social situations to run? Run far away into seclusion?
How do all my fellow Christian brothers and sisters handle their faith and life? Handle it together?
When I feel lonely or “cut off,” I scroll through my contacts and look for someone to call. Or even text. And then I don’t do either.
Too often I feel like too much of a burden on others. They’re so far ahead of me; I might as well just hide. Run. Leave.
Wander…
Right now, I feel 5 years behind everyone else. What about you?
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