![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
i'm nineteen and i'm on fire
this is a thought that's been plaguing me lately. i'm worried for the day i stop feeling twenty and invincible.
when i was a kid, i used to run through the rain and jump in puddles and eat dirt and brag about how impenetrable i was, how strong my immune system was. that urge has never really faded - as someone whose illnesses haven't exceeded a temporary sore throat in several years, i'm often reminded of that feeling of being able to take on the world no matter what. natural disasters have no grasp on me - it was only this year i started wearing sunscreen, and i'll regularly forgo hats or hoods if my head begins to feel uncomfortable.
i don't think it stopped there, either. there was a long, long period of my life where i don't think i've ever truly accepted that there were consequences to my actions. things happened, yes, but then they went away - there was always going to be some kind of reset button that made everything better. i'd do poorly in classes, but i'd still get into university, so it's fine. me and my friends got into a fight, but they'd forgive me and i'd do better next time, so it's fine. i'd make bad decisions, and then just repress them and pretend they never happened so i'd never have to acknowledge them, so it was fine.
i think (i hope) that's all part of being young and reckless. i can only assume it's a natural and almost required human experience, given the thousands of songs and stories that centre almost entirely around its essence. i guess it just feels odd to me because i spent so much time growing up thinking that i was above it all, that i understood my actions and i wasn't going to be like everyone assumed all teenagers were like. i was too "mature" to act reckless, but i guess that's what everyone thinks. i guess (i hope) that's just a part of growing up.
i think i'm just scared that if i don't take care of myself now, i'll end up irreparably harming myself in the long run. because right now i can eat terrible food and carry four grocery bags at once and not wash my face and jump off swing sets just to see how high i go. i just don't know how that's going to affect me in the long run. and i have always - always always always - been terrified of the unknown.
it's this odd combination, of wanting to be responsible enough to prepare for my future, but wanting to be reckless enough to not have to care until it's out of my hands. i don't know if i want more to enjoy my youth or enjoy my future, especially when my future isn't guaranteed.
it's so, so bizarre spending so many of your formative years suicidal, because now everything ahead of me is murky and unclear because i've never had to think this far ahead. and every so often i'll have thoughts like, god, pull the plug on me if i ever have, like, back pain when i wake up - which i know maybe isn't healthy, but i am just so. utterly afraid of human pain. of that feeling of growing up and living in constant agony, of having to count my caloric intake and monitor my blood levels and go to yearly check-ups and so on and so forth. and i have the worst genes - diabetes from both my parents and all four of my grandparents, high blood pressure from both parents, history of sleep apnea, kidney stones, dementia, hearing loss - the list goes on and on.
i think i'm scared because i'm not good at taking care of myself, and i don't want to have to. it feels like a chore. i don't want to be a slave to my own body. i want to burn myself and know it's going to be completely fine the next day. i don't want to worry more than i have to.
this feels like a spoiled lament about how the limitations of the human physique shouldn't apply to me, and maybe it is, because i don't know how to make it not sound like that.
all i know is that - all those poems i read in high school about racing down highways and yelling until your throats gave out and the feeling of being larger than life itself...they really capture the feeling of being young and fucking stupid.
when i was a kid, i used to run through the rain and jump in puddles and eat dirt and brag about how impenetrable i was, how strong my immune system was. that urge has never really faded - as someone whose illnesses haven't exceeded a temporary sore throat in several years, i'm often reminded of that feeling of being able to take on the world no matter what. natural disasters have no grasp on me - it was only this year i started wearing sunscreen, and i'll regularly forgo hats or hoods if my head begins to feel uncomfortable.
i don't think it stopped there, either. there was a long, long period of my life where i don't think i've ever truly accepted that there were consequences to my actions. things happened, yes, but then they went away - there was always going to be some kind of reset button that made everything better. i'd do poorly in classes, but i'd still get into university, so it's fine. me and my friends got into a fight, but they'd forgive me and i'd do better next time, so it's fine. i'd make bad decisions, and then just repress them and pretend they never happened so i'd never have to acknowledge them, so it was fine.
i think (i hope) that's all part of being young and reckless. i can only assume it's a natural and almost required human experience, given the thousands of songs and stories that centre almost entirely around its essence. i guess it just feels odd to me because i spent so much time growing up thinking that i was above it all, that i understood my actions and i wasn't going to be like everyone assumed all teenagers were like. i was too "mature" to act reckless, but i guess that's what everyone thinks. i guess (i hope) that's just a part of growing up.
i think i'm just scared that if i don't take care of myself now, i'll end up irreparably harming myself in the long run. because right now i can eat terrible food and carry four grocery bags at once and not wash my face and jump off swing sets just to see how high i go. i just don't know how that's going to affect me in the long run. and i have always - always always always - been terrified of the unknown.
it's this odd combination, of wanting to be responsible enough to prepare for my future, but wanting to be reckless enough to not have to care until it's out of my hands. i don't know if i want more to enjoy my youth or enjoy my future, especially when my future isn't guaranteed.
it's so, so bizarre spending so many of your formative years suicidal, because now everything ahead of me is murky and unclear because i've never had to think this far ahead. and every so often i'll have thoughts like, god, pull the plug on me if i ever have, like, back pain when i wake up - which i know maybe isn't healthy, but i am just so. utterly afraid of human pain. of that feeling of growing up and living in constant agony, of having to count my caloric intake and monitor my blood levels and go to yearly check-ups and so on and so forth. and i have the worst genes - diabetes from both my parents and all four of my grandparents, high blood pressure from both parents, history of sleep apnea, kidney stones, dementia, hearing loss - the list goes on and on.
i think i'm scared because i'm not good at taking care of myself, and i don't want to have to. it feels like a chore. i don't want to be a slave to my own body. i want to burn myself and know it's going to be completely fine the next day. i don't want to worry more than i have to.
this feels like a spoiled lament about how the limitations of the human physique shouldn't apply to me, and maybe it is, because i don't know how to make it not sound like that.
all i know is that - all those poems i read in high school about racing down highways and yelling until your throats gave out and the feeling of being larger than life itself...they really capture the feeling of being young and fucking stupid.
no subject
I turn 39 this year and maybe have a little perspective on this subject that you've not yet acquired. When I was 20, I had moved around a lot as a child with my family. From one end of the US to the other, and admittedly I had experienced a lot, probably more than most people my age. I foolishly dropped out of high school and by then had 4 years of experience "adulting". I moved to a new state with friends and got into college on a whim, I dated, won, lost, went up and fell down a bazillion times and then after a few years of that and traveling to new states and such, I went abroad for my first time.
I just counted the number of countries I've visited recently at 23, states I've lived and worked in at something like 10-15. I've had so many lives, so many instances where I thought to myself that whatever things were at that moment, that, that was it, this is my life now, this is gonna be me and 40 years from now... and every time, a few years later I've always looked back sheepishly and grinned at how silly I'd been.
You will too. The next 5 years of your life will change so many times it will be dizzying, try not to worry too much about the remaining 65-70 and try to enjoy the 5 years as they flash by.
Life, as you'll come to know it, doesn't really start until basically 20.
no subject
I think more than anything I'm scared of everything changing and coming out the other end worse than I was before, and not better, but the way you speak of it - I realize that that's been my fair through every stage of my life. This one is just more...intense than the last few.
I hope you're at a high point in your life right now, and I hope that's something that stays with you. Thank you again, so much.