I'm not sure I agree with that statement. To me age has always been a crutch not something beautiful. Something to be used against me not to build me up. I have a huge problem with my age, and I probably will until I'm like forty or something. Maybe even then.
You have to understand I'm young. Like super young. Like seventeen in college young. It kills me a little on the inside to even write that. A lot of people say oh it's amazing that you got into college so young and you should be proud of that. But I'm not. On the other hand a lot of people say, wow you're young and look down on me for it. I don't know about you, but constantly knowing that the people you go to school with are two to five years older then you is not something you forget, ever.
Sometimes I feel like if you know how young I am you're going to look down on me more, think of me as less of a person. It's not rational at all but I constantly feel like that. Think that oh you're so young that you don't know how the world works, or you can't make a difference, or you're still a minor according to the law. When people ask how old I am I cringe, I tell them the truth because I can't lie. There's that moment of shock followed by the "oh." or "I never knew that" or "I wouldn't have guessed that" well you might not have known but everyday I know and I feel that people judge me about it, that just by looking at me they can figure it out. Then there's the people that when I tell they say "Oh wow you're so young" and then they NEVER let me forget it. They keep bringing it up all the time. I already I have a constant reminder voice in my head, I don't need you to constantly remind me also. There was one girl this year that every time I saw her she brought it up. Always brought up that I was a freshmen, and the youngest freshmen at that. But she was in my position last year who is she to judge me on my age?
Sometimes there are those moments where I honestly don't think I'm seventeen. It's not like I forget, because you never forget something like that, it's more like I've experienced so many things that most people don't when they're seventeen. I'm not saying I know everything, trust me I know nothing, I crave to know more. But those moments where I'm sure I'm more mature then my age. And those are probably my best moments. And then there are those moments when I fuck up. When I say something I shouldn't, or I act extremely immature. Not like the oh-I'm-going-to-act-immature-to-be-funny, more like the oh crap I shouldn't have said that or done that. And yeah when those moments happen most people forget about them but I don't. And then there are those people who remember those moments and blame it on the fact that I'm only seventeen or I'm only a first year in college.
My favorite are my parents. Especially now that second semester is halfway done and then I'm going to live with them for three months again. I'm already planning things for this summer and when I told my mom about them she was like, you're seventeen you're still a minor. That's not fair, I'm seventeen legally but I've been away for a whole school year, I'm going to be a sophmore in college next year. What's you're excuse going to be then? I understand she means well and she's just trying to protect me. I also understand that during those three months I will be living under their roof and will have to abide by those rules no matter how old I am, but using my age against me is just...it kinda hurts. Maybe it's because I don't have a good image about my age, if you had told me you can't do that because I will be living under your roof then I'd be fine about that, but instead you pick my greatest weakness...my age.
And I know when you read this blog you're most likely thinking 'you're seventeen you still have the world ahead of you. And eventually you'll be comfortable in you're own age.', but I don't think so. Maybe it's because I'm constantly looking forward to tomorrow, what I'll be doing in the next five years that I just want time to go by faster. My brain is in this time period years ahead of the year that I'm living in that moment. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, maybe I have to start living in the moment but that's a blog for a different day.
At the same time I don't want to be in my forties and be saying I wish I was younger, I wish I had the time to appreciate my youth and I wasn't so focused on being older and hating the fact that I was young.
My age is something that I'm working on accepting as weird as that sounds. It's a part of me and I need to embrace it. Mark Twain once said;
"Age is an issue of mind over matter; If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
To me my age matters and I have to start to let that go.
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