To be childlike, but not childish.
Three things in my life are unavoidable: crying, loving, and writing. It also seems that each one of these naturally perpetuates the others; the storied and webbed trinity of my existence. I've spent too many days doing the crying and loving without the writing, so here's a stammered attempt at acknowledging the third pillar.
Writing was easier in my adolescence. The recipe for my chaoting musings was one part feeling, ushered from the heart I wore all too proudly on my sleeve, one part visceral reaction from what I assumed to be a reliably intuitive gut, and three parts overstated vocabulary from the brain I intentionally crammed with too many things. ("Read Nietzche," he said, "You'll look at the world differently.") I'd take this concoction and shake with haste and fury, and pour out the result and my innards to ask my readers one simple question: "You, too?"
Finding the words in adulthood is much more challenging, primarily because I have fooled myself into thinking I know the answers to the questions that plagued me in my youth. I check boxes decidedly now, demarkating my religious and political preferences (well, my lack thereof), my salary bracket, my education level (why don't they have more options to highlight my accompishments?), and scoff at services that can't accurately detect my preferences for witty and intellectually stimulating media with a small smattering of tasteless reality TV (seriously, Netflix, get it together).
When did I become so predictable? My days are as calculated as I am; I can tell you with a 90% confidence interval what I'll be doing any given day of the week for the next year or two.
I miss the recklessness of youth, the spontaneity of relationships burgeoning over overpriced coffee, the haughty acknowledgement that alcohol was not an answer to our questions, the curious uncertainty of spirituality and religion, and learning deeply about the minds and bodies of others as I discovered the capabilities of my own.
Tonight, in honor of my youth, I'll set aside my fancy bottles of scotch and DVRed reality shows to dip back into writing, to remember the qualities and acts that remind me how to be childlike, and to remind myself that I've got it no more figured out than the girl who wrote in this very journal ten years ago. So here's to you, Sixteen; you had more right than you could ever know.
Writing was easier in my adolescence. The recipe for my chaoting musings was one part feeling, ushered from the heart I wore all too proudly on my sleeve, one part visceral reaction from what I assumed to be a reliably intuitive gut, and three parts overstated vocabulary from the brain I intentionally crammed with too many things. ("Read Nietzche," he said, "You'll look at the world differently.") I'd take this concoction and shake with haste and fury, and pour out the result and my innards to ask my readers one simple question: "You, too?"
Finding the words in adulthood is much more challenging, primarily because I have fooled myself into thinking I know the answers to the questions that plagued me in my youth. I check boxes decidedly now, demarkating my religious and political preferences (well, my lack thereof), my salary bracket, my education level (why don't they have more options to highlight my accompishments?), and scoff at services that can't accurately detect my preferences for witty and intellectually stimulating media with a small smattering of tasteless reality TV (seriously, Netflix, get it together).
When did I become so predictable? My days are as calculated as I am; I can tell you with a 90% confidence interval what I'll be doing any given day of the week for the next year or two.
I miss the recklessness of youth, the spontaneity of relationships burgeoning over overpriced coffee, the haughty acknowledgement that alcohol was not an answer to our questions, the curious uncertainty of spirituality and religion, and learning deeply about the minds and bodies of others as I discovered the capabilities of my own.
Tonight, in honor of my youth, I'll set aside my fancy bottles of scotch and DVRed reality shows to dip back into writing, to remember the qualities and acts that remind me how to be childlike, and to remind myself that I've got it no more figured out than the girl who wrote in this very journal ten years ago. So here's to you, Sixteen; you had more right than you could ever know.