Youth

I miss being a teenager and a youth. I am only 20 but I can notice and see the difference in myself and in the way that people treat me. In many respects, I appreciate the way that I am treated, as an adult. But sometimes, I really miss being a teenager. Teenagers have a special and a different view of the world than adults. All teenagers ever want is to be an adult and they forget to focus on what it's like to be a teenager. I am no exception to this. All that I ever wanted was to be treated as a grown up and not as young. I longed for the day when I was responsible for myself. Well, now I am. But not only that, I am responsible for much more than that. The days of dreaming constantly and looking at the world with a vast wonder are fading much more quickly than I ever thought they could. There is something beautiful about teenagers and their wisdom and perspective on the world. There is also something special about the way that adults view them. They are at the awkward in between stage of life. They are not yet classified as an adult but they are no longer a child and cannot be treated as either. Messages are often directed at the teenagers and are meant to lift them up. I also miss the wisdom and the perspective that I had as a teenager. I viewed the world and my faith in God in a different way. I had not been influenced and taught by all sorts of people. As much as I appreciate who I am now and the confidence that I now have in myself, I have been taught by many different people and have been more exposed to the world. My heart does not break for people as easily anymore because I have become slightly numb to pain and suffering. I feel like I am wandering on a path in a dark forest and there are small paths all over the place that look like the right path but I just can't tell. The more I keep learning, the more that I keep getting lost in the forest and wandering off the path and getting lost on the other ones. The other paths have brambles and bushes that seek to ensnare me in their grasp. It is so hard to find the right path through the mess in the forest. It is becoming harder and harder to see the truth from the lies and I feel like it is a constant battle and like I am being constantly attacked. Each attack weakens my ability to resist the other attacks. The more they keep coming, the easier it gets to give in to the attacks. I miss the teenage years and the perspective and the view of the world that they have. Teenagers are beyond a child in wisdom but they are still capable of having child like faith. Parts of their brains capable of problem solving have not yet fully developed and the cognitive capacity is not complete, but there is something beautiful about that. Boy do I miss that view of the world and being in high school where I could slack through school and still get by with good grades. As well, school was not everything, pleasure and enjoying life were a significant aspect of it.