Being a teenager is being impulsive, reckless, passionate. It’s wanting to explore and learn a hundred new things at once, but being unable to because you’re preparing for your future, your jobs that’ll help you exist, but not really live.
Being a teenager is falling in love with everything, from people to things, and hating others with fiery disposition. It’s being proud of yourself one moment and deeply ashamed the next. It’s the moment of exploring sexualities, of arms and legs touching, of limbs coming together, of mutual learning and understanding.
Being a teenager is when you realise the world is not yours for the taking, it’s right there, but it belongs to someone else. It’s getting your heart ripped out a thousand times, when you face rejection, when unhappiness looms over the horizon like a constant hoverer. It’s happiness in creating memories that may make you cringe when looked back upon, but with a fondness for your innocence.
Being a teenager is when you realise you’re not immortal or eternal, when you realise that death is coming for you, and it has already come for someone who is your age. It’s realising that life sucks, that there’s nothing you can do to control your circumstances, until you’re finally free. It’s learning to accept that you can’t just get up and leave when you feel like it, there are feelings to be considered, people to keep relations with. It’s wanting to be free, to be independent and wanting to be cared for.
Being a teenager is realising the fallacy of your childhood dreams, of how they’re probably never going to come true. It’s realising how far you’ve got to go, and there’s so much more left to explore and experience. But never again will there come a first kiss, your first time with someone, magical in the moment. Sloppy tongues and clashing teeth, leaning to discover another body like your own.
You’re going to leave school and college and probably leave the comfort of home to brave a new world, with or without a significant other. Being a teenager is when you realise how complex the world is, how jarring reality is and how much it affects you. You have new appreciation for your childhood innocence and the way you’ve been protected from the cruel, unfeeling world.
“When adults say, “Teenagers think they are invincible” with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
But now is the time the world is yours to seize and all you need to do is believe in yourself and put in efforts. You dream big, with ambitions that reach beyond the sky, with the failures turning into guidelines for your eventual success.
Being a teenager is being powerful and powerless at the same time, wanting to be a part of the world and wanting no part in it. The period of learning, of growth and experiencing what’s going to befall them in the future.
Being a teenager is tasting the very first slice of the cake that life is.
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I woke up a couple days ago with the horrifying realisation that I only had a few more months left of being a teenager and this was born of exam stress, a lot of procrastination and a desire to put into words what I’ve been feeling for a long time.
Also, this post is my hundredth post on this blog. Fitting ode, don’t you think? I began this blog as a clueless teen at the age of sixteen and here I am, still clueless at nineteen hoping to find her place in the world and just be happy. Thanks for sticking around, you’ve been great.
Until next time,
Nia Carnelio.
Freedom And Inspiration 