♫ The Final Riot (Full Concert) - Paramore
There’s a well-known saying that goes, "Youth is wasted on the young.” As a 26 year old, I feel neither old or young. It’s a weird ambiguous limbo but what I am sure of is the multitude of things I’ve learned that I wish I could tell my younger, more naïve, more confident self. There’s a sick and cruel beauty in growing up and learning life lessons at that correct moment in time but it’s hard to resist imagining what if – what if we knew what we knew now.
I picture traveling back in time in a make-shift time machine that I built out of things I scrounged from a scrap yard (because I’m a freakin’ genius in my fantasy obviously) in the rain to make it extra dramatic. I’d time hop and find myself at a party one of my parents’ band mates threw. Of course, I’d find little me with my bowl cut and cute bangs in the quietest part of the house reading a book. True story and as you can tell, my parents are cooler than me. I’ll walk up to myself and tell the truth obviously; that I’m a time-traveling wizard and yes, you’ll look slightly less awkward in twenty years as you can see but feeling less awkward, you’ll probably never grow out of that. I’d sit there seeing the disdain in my little face for interrupting the book but promise that it’s worth it, and because I’m a people pleaser, I will sit there like the obedient little me I know I am. Oh, dear little me, where do I even begin?
The closest version I can be to this time-traveling wizard is to play make belief and write letters to my younger self. I’ll write about the lessons I’ve learned or the ones I have yet to learn, and of course, they’ll all be accompanied in song because life should be a musical. Seriously. How fun would THAT be? So, join me as I share the more human side of myself and hopefully, you’ll feel less alone in the awkwardness that is finding yourself.
Until then, stay bold and weirdly
beautiful, folks.
