Anyway, I need a break from being "agobiada" (coolest Spanish word ever) to write something I've been thinking about for a week or two now...
It's come to my attention that I am no longer a teenager. I know, I'm 24 and I should have gotten the memo about five years ago... but what I mean is, that general attitude and outlook on life that can stick with you far past your 20th birthday. And it's sort of a bittersweet realization, actually... not that I'd ever want to be a teenager again... I'm quite happy right where I am, but it just made me think...
See, being a teenager is an interesting time - you have new found freedoms and feelings and thoughts and are starting to emerge from your cocoon... and it can be really fun and exciting and crazy. But, at the same time, you're beginning to realize that you have absolutely NO idea who you really are. Like, none. Some days you might think you're Person A, but then a few days later you realize you're more like Person B... and, even more confusing, you're not even sure if you like who Person A or Person B is. You think maybe you do, but then you wonder if other people like either of them... and then you begin to have a sinking feeling that even if you KNEW who you really were, nobody would even like that person anyway...
As if all of that inner turmoil weren't bad enough, you have the huge issue that hardly ANYBODY seems to really UNDERSTAND YOU. When you think about it, who can blame them!? You hardly understand yourself! But no - that's not the point. They don't understand who you think you are... they don't understand what you're going through... they don't understand anything. You're in constant crisis mode and nobody is GETTING IT. WHAT is wrong with these people???
During these years, though, you teenagers have a serious weapon in your arsenal that younger people and adults simply do not have. And that weapon is your friends. Your friends are EVERYTHING to you, because your friends just GET it. They GET you. And another thing you teenagers have that the rest of the world doesn't? First experiences with love. Not rational love - none of that crap. Real, crazy, traumatic, amazing, thrilling, intense, wonderful, painful, torturous, incredible, life-altering LOVE. Some adults say that you're too young to know what love really is, but you obviously do. Love is what makes you jump out of bed in the morning to see if he's texted you. Love is what makes you stay up late talking to him with a goofy smile plastered to your face. Love is what makes you sane - and, well, crazy... at the same time. But it's worth it. It's what's keeping you alive.
Being around teenagers every day at school has brought me back to my teenage years recently. As with most teenagers, mine were equally as intense. They were the years of my parents' divorce, of changing between three schools, of Matt and Scott and Stephen and Kenny, of Conor and Woody, of debate team, of languages, of Miles and Moxie, of living in three different homes/apartments. My teenage years were arguably crazier and more intense than the average girl's -- and I also had no idea what I was doing, yet felt that hardly anybody really understood how wise I was. They were the most painful years and the most wonderful years.
As I talk to my high schoolers and hear about their lives, and as I peeked at their Tweets yesterday, I saw all of that... and my reaction was surprising. On one hand, I felt a little jealous of their crazy intensity, but on the other hand, I authentically felt a little sorry for them. They had silly pictures trying to look cool and used a lot of cuss words to project a badass persona. I wanted so badly to send them a little anonymous note being like, "Stop trying so hard - you all look ridiculous! You poor little adorable people! You're totally cool when you're just being yourselves! Promise!" But then, they wouldn't believe me... and they shouldn't, either.
I remember that as a teenager, adults would try to give me advice. They'd say they knew what I was going through and they had been there and wanted to give me their wisdom. But that's not how it works. First, in many cases, I'm not convinced that adults really even remember the glorious and awful intensity of being a teenager. I think that if they did, they'd cut these people a lot more slack and be able to relate to them much better... Not that I know HOW you forget being a teenager, maybe most adults have blocked it out out of embarrassment (haha). But, more importantly, second: the point of being a teenager is to be a chaotic disaster who questions everything (except, usually, the things they SHOULD be questioning - haha). It just is. Sure, it behooves you to be able to balance your crazy teenage life with school work and other responsibilities... but past that, it's kind of the time to just experiment with life.
By "experiment with life" I don't mean experiment with drugs and sex. Those aren't experiments so much as cries for help. What I mean is, being a teenager is the set of years in which you must decide if you want to go along with society or if you want to take another path that leads you on your own journey. It's actually a really scary decision, and I'd be willing to bet most teenagers think they're going in the direction of their own journey (because YOLO - bahaha) - but are, in fact, just following everybody else. Teenagers are little creatures on a hamster wheel of "what's cool," trying to impress each other, because they're scared that deep down they'll never be understood nor loved for who they are - BECAUSE THEY STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THEY ARE - AND FEAR THEY WILL NEVER FIGURE IT OUT.
OH YOU POOR LITTLE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3
I guess, now that I've emerged from the other end of it, not necessarily unscathed, but certainly victorious, I see it like this: Kids are coddled inside a little place in the center of a giant maze. Things are great there and they know that space very well. Then, as they become teenagers, new parts of the maze start to unfold... and suddenly they are LOST... but they scramble through it trying to look like they know what they're doing, 'cause they're too petrified they'll never emerge and other people will figure out that they're scared and lost - and that would be the worst thing ever... sometimes it's kinda fun, but sometimes it's really not... and then, one day... they realize the walls in that maze were actually all just elaborate two-way mirrors that were penetrable all along ... and when they find their way out, they can't believe how difficult it all seemed.
And that's how you get adults, who don't understand... because they don't remember those walls in the maze seeming so impenetrable. And, if they somehow do, they try to tell the teenagers to just walk through them. But it doesn't work like that. They're only penetrable after the individual figures it out on their own. Otherwise, they'd never figure out who they were and who they wanted to become.
Those nights when I would sit in my dark closet crying, I would always vow that I would never be one of those adults that didn't understand kids and teenagers. I would always remember how it felt, and I would always do my best to try to understand those who "average" adults would simply judge them with an air of superiority, saying they were "too young" to understand or know what was best or whatever. As I realize I'm no longer of the teenager mindset, I suppose I'm starting to see what the adults meant by those things, but I will never fully agree with them. I will stick to the vow I made to myself in my closet, because I can't help but do so.
I have the utmost respect for the little battle each teenager is going through. I will never be the adult to devalue it. I've earned my teenager badge, and I am proud of it. And I hope to always be one of those unique adults that can remember the amazing struggle of it all and be there to support others along the journey, and never to belittle or judge them for it by trying to tell them how to do it. (A teenager that blindly listened to an adult would in fact be doing themselves a great disservice, anyway, and I don't want to hinder the process!) It's sort of like watching a butterfly emerge from its cocoon and yelling at it for not hurrying up - "all you have to do is push your way through it - DUH." No. It's a process, and one that is beautiful and painful.
I wish there were a way I could make all my little high schoolers know that I understand and I respect them. That one day they will feel confident in their awesomeness - and some societal contrived version of awesomeness ("I have 'swag' and I use cuss words and I drink and I smoke and I do my duckface and I put scandalous pictures on the internet and I am so unique and cool and I don't care what anybody thinks about me, because I'm better than them anyway and YOLO.") , but a unique sense of purpose ("I am a BAMF - because I am nothing like anybody else. Arguably, most people don't even understand me... and some don't even like me... and that is totally cool. Because I know exactly who I am, and sometimes I dance in little circles and squeak, because I'm so enchanted by it. And I use this lovely person that I am to go out and help others and try to do my part to make the world a wee bit better off. I am so grateful and have found a unique little spot in the world that makes me hum with happiness.")
So, if there are any teenager people reading this, just know that I think you're awesome. Even when you don't know who you are and if you have even a drop of awesomeness inside of you. Even when adults are telling you that you suck. Even when you sit in your closet and cry. I shall for always think you are awesome. Get on that little hobby horse of yours...
gallop through that maze and pick and choose which qualities you want to add to your arsenal of awesomeness and which ones you would prefer to do without - because your experiences now will shape who you become in the future. If you ever lose faith in the journey, know that I have a bucket load of personal faith in each of you sitting right over here in my own little world... and if you ever need any, I'll be right here to give it to you.
Now go make those duckfaces and text your boyfriend and resume your intense teenager lives - but just try never to completely forget we had this little heart-to-heart. ;)
XOXO
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