UM pleek advice i’m turning twenty soon nd i’m scared 🥹💔 ageism eating me alive i feel like i havent lived my teen years because Brown Parents just idk… IDK!!!! im over reacting i think but im crying everyday like my youth was stolen from me cuz abuse and insecurity and pandemic but idk what to do now i feel so lost and seeing ur posts u just seem so smart and excited about life and exploring urself so i come humbly for advice 😞
i know this feeling bc i have the same parents but like i really mean it when i say life doesn't start for a lot of people until they're 25-30+
i was blessed with older siblings and cousins in my life and pretty much all of them say the same thing. my cousins did all the fun teenager things and even so they're all so much happier now then they ever were before.
you're never gonna be 15 again, that's true. but the life you imagined or dreamed of living at 15 isn't the only life you'll ever live and really isn't even that important. you have a romantic idea of it because you never experienced it.
but you have the rest of your life. do you know how long that is? you're only 20. that's nothing. 25 is nothing. 30, 31, 32. you're just starting in comparison to the rest of your life. the only reason you feel that way is because you're suffocated and the idea that being young is everything but it simply isn't. statistically if you only live to be 60, you have 2 entire thirds left to exist.
don't listen to people on the internet who can't fathom being over 17. adulthood is only a curse if you glorify being young. and you're not even an adult. any real adult thinks you're a kid. the only person who thinks your old is a person who's sitting in calculus one who eats lunch at 10am. why are you listening to them anyway?
i don't especially like being young honestly. there's nothing i look forward to more than getting older every year. i want to be 50 with a garden. i want to spend the rest of my life being a good person. i am so comforted by the fact i still have all this time.
you are so lucky to be alive. you must believe that the time you have left is a gift.
being young is only easy for those who come from privilege. but any person with responsibilities knows how suffocatingly lonely it can be trying to care for yourself and make something of your life.
and it's because of that gradual reality that you have to believe life hasn't reached it's potential. that this isn't your limit. if you're incessantly thinking that you've wasted so much time, than how will you grow? if you're constantly chasing at teenage years that you'll never get again, how will you learn to love the fully realized version of yourself?
if you spend your 20's looking back how can you look forward to the rest of your life? is it fair to yourself to ignore all that's made you who you are, just because you missed out on certain experiences?
look at how far you've come. look at how much it's taken you. look at all this life you have left to keep pushing. i know it feels like you're meandering, but the virtue of living is gaining experience. every minute you engage the world is meaningful to your life and this isn't a hope thing but a universal truth. it is the only facet of existence that has been respected since the beginning of civilization. experience that you can only gain now by opening your eyes to whats around you.
life is hard now. you are going to do your best. and maybe your best is ugly. it never feels good enough. it's not as good as what other people do. but it's yours, so solely. and if all you ever do is worry about the life you haven't lived instead of cherishing the life you have, you're going to feel miserable and you don't have to feel that.
you'll never be 15 again not once. you'll never know what that's like and it sucks. i won't tell you to feel fine about what you might've missed because i know and i get it.
but maybe you only want to be 15 because you think it would've changed who you are now. maybe you think the you now isn't good enough.
but you are. and it is. and there's nothing to be afraid of. every day of living despite it's many solitudes is worth it. even the worst of your tomorrows are to be cherished. you are so young. a drop in the massive of sea.
but that means you can go anywhere and do anything. with time, with patience, with struggle, with tears. you have now and tomorrow. between then nothing will change. you will do it a thousand times, and then you will look back and suddenly be so different. this is your finicky existence.
the only way to not be afraid of getting older is believing with your heart that living is meaningful. count your blessings and celebrate your small joys. you have the rest of your life to do that. i think that alone is something worth celebrating.
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