I went back at age 29. I am almost 34 now, and need to do 1.5 more years. Then PhD.

I feel I missed my first childhood. Almost no partying or hanging out with friends, doing fun stuff. I am a shallow sleeper and I like to sleep in the cold so I open my window always. Every second evening I sleep shallow so that I wake up at least once because students are cycling past my apartment after they returned from a party. They are so happy, or drunk, or it is a guy and a girl having a nice evening. I am usually alone, as I don't like strangers and I like to keep most people strangers and people don't go out of their way to become friends with me. So at those moments it hits me the most.

I had tons of motivation to study, as this was my final chance at life. I couldn't work a ordinary day job, ever. But student life going past me keeps annoying me. I am like basically only studying. So if this keeps up, in 6 years I will have done a PhD, just finishing up a postdoc of 2 years in some country I never would want to live in permanently. And then I will be returning to my own country, no permanent job, entering industry at age 43, all shallow friendships I did have watered down by two years of time. What then?

I do feel that on a daily basis, I forget how much older I am than my fellow students. And they don't always realize how old I am. I don't know how it feels for them, because if you are 21, 13 years is a lot. I feel they also kind of forget, most of the time.

But then again, there's more things strange about me than just my age.