It really is strange, growing older. I feel like I just molt in and out of personalities over time, totally ditching the past me's and becoming a different person each and every day, little by little.
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| "'I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." |
I'm about to turn 25, and I feel like I'm finally at a point in my life where I now have an elusive past. Like, I can say casually in conversation that high school was ten years ago for me, or that I have friends who have been my friends for 10+ YEARS, that kind of thing. I have a history now, some baggage to carry around, some shit to regret, some exes to hate... It's interesting. I probe around the past in my head, feeling true nostalgia for the first time, finally knowing what it's like to love and live and lose an entire generation, a whole childhood, gone.
I'm not sure how I feel about growing up, yet. I know that it's supposed to be normal to feel bad about getting older, to be scared, to fear mortality, wrinkles, becoming ugly, etc.... but I also know that just because something is "normal" in this society, doesn't mean that it should be. I'm trying to embrace my age, not fear or resent it as much as I have in the past. I'm a Peter Pan kindof girl at heart, never wanting to grow up, always ready for an adventure, but that doesn't mean that I have to avoid doing my taxes, or stay up until 4am every morning watching GLEE when I know I have shit to do the next day. I'm an adult now. I could rent a car if I wanted to! Forget the fact that I'm terrified of driving and dream with me for a moment here, people!
Needless to say, I do not feel 25, at all. The last 6 years whooshed past me and I'm really not sure what to do, aside from writing really long and mournful journal entries about it. My youth, my true youth, is gone. Older people will tell me that I'm still young, but really, I'm not. I'll never be 17 again, listening to bad emo bands or dreaming about getting the perfect scene haircut whilst scrolling through the Neopets roleplaying boards, and that will never be me again (although I am thinking of bringing the scene mullet back just for funsies). Does it not blow anyone else's mind that Panic! At the Disco's debut album just turned 10 years old? I mean, seriously. Alt Emo can't be retro yet, I'm not ready!
Additionally, I really feel like I'm losing touch with the younger generations, to a certain extent. The whole everyone-has-a-smart-phone thing is weird, and since I don't even have one, I find myself slipping further and further behind. Actually, the whole everyone-uses-the-internet thing is weird for me, too, since when I was younger the 'net wasn't as widely accepted as it is now. Kids look up youtube videos in strollers and 4 year olds take selfies. I'm intrigued, however, by this new youth. I'm excited to see what comes from them, with their tech-savvy-ness, which is now a word. And I really don't believe the whole "we were the last generation to play in the street" garbage that you see people in their 30's spamming on facebook. I see kids playing outside all of the time! Hello, smart phones are fucking portable, technology isn't keeping children indoors! Ask my neighbors, their kids are constantly screaming and running up and down the street, just like we did. So I really don't know what the fuck old people are going on about when they write off this next generation of kids as being lazy technosnobs obsessed with taking selfies. If we had the technology available to us as younguns, we would've went for it. I don't know what the future holds, but I'm optimistic. I see more and more younger people getting involved politically, thanks to the internet. I see creative kids posting online, making things, networking, in ways adults don't even know how to do. I'm impressed by our youth, if anything. I don't find them to be apathetic at all. I think adults need to spend more time actually talking to their kids and less time reposting smack about them on social media sites, although the kinds of parents who do this are also probably the kinds of parents who continuously post cringe-worthy, borderline racist articles for all of the family to see on facebook, so it s possible that they just don't have a lot in common with their more socially aware children, I don't know. I just think kids are amazing and I'm going to miss being one.
In a way, however, it's nice being the old fogey. I'm done being the stupid kid (for the most part) learning all of those harsh life lessons that you gotta learn in order to function properly as an adult, like, for example, that doing 10 shots of anything in a row on an empty stomach is just plain stupid. Sometimes you just have to live to learn, man. I now KNOW my alcohol limit. I can actually feel myself go from buzzed to drunk, and then stop drinking. It's amazing, I know, but trust me, someday, underage person drinking, you, too, will know your booze limit. It's only a matter of time. You may also learn what kindof guys to avoid, which haircuts look good and which haircuts... don't, who your real friends are, how high school was a complete joke, among many other valuable lessons. Am I done learning? No, of course not. But I do feel like I've made a pretty solid foundation for growth in my teens and early 20's through some major trial and error. So, it's nice having most of that shit be behind me, in the sense that it's no longer in front of me, but I now have to deal with the memories. And memories are weird and sad and almost like dreams, at times, so it really is super strange getting older and growing up. I'm new to it, too. I've never been old before. Your mind changes, your body changes, everything around you and about you changes, really, but your past stays exactly the fucking same.
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| If anyone knows the original artist of the picture above, please let me know! |
