19, 20, 21! :)
Sep. 18th, 2016 01:02 amvia http://ift.tt/2cvhdwq:
19) Are the privileges of adulthood worth the responsibilities?
20) Do you feel like an adult?
21) Is youth wasted on the young?
I did 20 already, so I’ll kind of do all 3 at once here.
I mean… adulthood is a ball of suck, but I can’t imagine having to answer to someone about the basic decisions of my life again. It really profoundly sucked to have someone with the kind of petty power over me that my parents wielded. They were pretty chill, all around– good parents, respectful, had my best interests in mind and the resources and capabilities to actually mostly take care of me well, had the ability along with the good intentions to actually make a real stab at raising me right and all. But even that sucked out loud. I mean. Someone’s whim determining how you should manage your time and when you slept and what you ate and how you dressed and how you wore your hair and whether you could travel even a trivial distance. I mean. As soon as you can take care of that kind of thing on your own, you really have to. It’s sometimes tempting to wish someone else would just decide everything, but it’s just. Childhood was idyllic but an adult brain is not really cut out for that kind of shit anymore.
When I was a kid my dad used to rail against the mindless glorification of youth so popular in our culture. People would say “don’t you want to be young again” and he always maintained that youth had sucked, and knowing who he was and having his basic personality sorted out was worth dealing with creaky knees and whatever hassles age brings.
I’m not quite as well-adjusted as him, maybe, but I still do see his point. Being young really sucked. My thirties have been a bit nicer because while I’ve had all kinds of brain chemistry bullshit, it turns out that I’m pretty sure I always had that, I just didn’t know myself well enough to realize it. I certainly had terrible depression problems all through my adolescence and early adulthood, and I just thought that was how people lived.
Youth’s not really something to waste, though. I will say this, to any of you under thirty: enjoy your knees while they last, and enjoy your ability to process alcohol and function on sub-optimal sleep and compensate for various physical things like that, because those will go away. But, on the other hand, look forward to finally sorting out your personality quirks from your actual mental illnesses, and maybe starting to get a handle on where your actual boundaries are and some practice at enforcing them. Because those things get easier with practice, and the longer you live the more perspective you get on shit.
I won’t say it gets easier, but you kind of have a better understanding of the wider point of view on things, I think. Or at least, you have the opportunity for such. Some people, that’s never their jam.
But man. Some of the shit I used to have to worry about when I was young– God, that was so fucking tedious. You can’t not wonder about these things, but I’m just glad I’ve mostly worked them out in my head so I can just move the fuck on.

19) Are the privileges of adulthood worth the responsibilities?
20) Do you feel like an adult?
21) Is youth wasted on the young?
I did 20 already, so I’ll kind of do all 3 at once here.
I mean… adulthood is a ball of suck, but I can’t imagine having to answer to someone about the basic decisions of my life again. It really profoundly sucked to have someone with the kind of petty power over me that my parents wielded. They were pretty chill, all around– good parents, respectful, had my best interests in mind and the resources and capabilities to actually mostly take care of me well, had the ability along with the good intentions to actually make a real stab at raising me right and all. But even that sucked out loud. I mean. Someone’s whim determining how you should manage your time and when you slept and what you ate and how you dressed and how you wore your hair and whether you could travel even a trivial distance. I mean. As soon as you can take care of that kind of thing on your own, you really have to. It’s sometimes tempting to wish someone else would just decide everything, but it’s just. Childhood was idyllic but an adult brain is not really cut out for that kind of shit anymore.
When I was a kid my dad used to rail against the mindless glorification of youth so popular in our culture. People would say “don’t you want to be young again” and he always maintained that youth had sucked, and knowing who he was and having his basic personality sorted out was worth dealing with creaky knees and whatever hassles age brings.
I’m not quite as well-adjusted as him, maybe, but I still do see his point. Being young really sucked. My thirties have been a bit nicer because while I’ve had all kinds of brain chemistry bullshit, it turns out that I’m pretty sure I always had that, I just didn’t know myself well enough to realize it. I certainly had terrible depression problems all through my adolescence and early adulthood, and I just thought that was how people lived.
Youth’s not really something to waste, though. I will say this, to any of you under thirty: enjoy your knees while they last, and enjoy your ability to process alcohol and function on sub-optimal sleep and compensate for various physical things like that, because those will go away. But, on the other hand, look forward to finally sorting out your personality quirks from your actual mental illnesses, and maybe starting to get a handle on where your actual boundaries are and some practice at enforcing them. Because those things get easier with practice, and the longer you live the more perspective you get on shit.
I won’t say it gets easier, but you kind of have a better understanding of the wider point of view on things, I think. Or at least, you have the opportunity for such. Some people, that’s never their jam.
But man. Some of the shit I used to have to worry about when I was young– God, that was so fucking tedious. You can’t not wonder about these things, but I’m just glad I’ve mostly worked them out in my head so I can just move the fuck on.
