Never in my life did I expect to get old. Now I know that sounds ridiculous but hear me out. Youth, while you’re in if, seems long. When I was 17/18 graduating high school, the world was my oyster. I had had no major difficult life experiences, and I was ripe to get out of town and explore. I didn’t even go to university right away, but instead did some world traveling, teaching conversational English.
Granted I had no formal educational training, but my mother tongue was English so that opened doors worldwide to go and experience life in new and interesting ways. So my late teens rolled into my twenties, and they didn’t feel much different. Granted I got married at 20 (a mistake) started university at 22 (a good idea) and then started my own business with my now ex husband at 22 ( a fabulous experience). All these experiences rolled into one another, and I had the energy and the ignorance to think that I could do anything, but then… I did it.
Started a business, graduated from university, made a bunch of money, then went back to school and had major success with my academic endeavors (was accepted into Harvard for my MA!). But now? Now when I see the youth I feel old. And now when I hear them talking, I don’t understand them. 6-7 anyone?
Completely meaningless, nonsensical gibberish is all I hear when I happen to walk next to a crowd of teenagers. And the one thing I’m stuck with is that somehow in my late thirties I have lost all that seemingly endless youthful spirit. And I’m sad about it. Maybe it’s because I left my husband at thirty-two, the same age I moved to Canada for my MA. I was in a new country and I was all alone. But looking back that didn’t faze me. Things worked out for me, and I consider the divorce beneficial. I am so glad I got out of a marriage that sucked. I am living a life now that is completely nonsensical and unexpected.
But I have lost my youth. But not fully. Maybe that’s because I became a parent and the ferocious wave of anxiety that I felt during delivery keeps hitting me time and time again. It’s like now the veil has been taken off my eyes and I can see the potential for harm everywhere. In my kid biking down the street (getting hit by a car backing out of a driveway) or playing in a park (off leash dogs!) or hanging off a chair (concussion!) It sucks, and I’m definitely so much less likely to take risks, I lost that freewheeling spirit, where I knew that things would work out.
So sometimes I feel stuck, and I long for my youth. Not for the looks or for the lack of responsibility, but for the insane drip of potential that cascaded in my veins. I miss my newfound independence, and I miss flaunting it in the face of older and wiser people who would look at me saying, “I’m moving over seas without a college degree to teach English!” with doubtful eyes and shaking heads. But I guess that’s the way of youth, to troll the older generations and to do whatever the heck we want.
6-7!
