Is This What Youth Is Meant To Be?
Excerpts from the Life of a Twenty-One Year Old
I’m standing in the middle of a field with 11,000 people.
We crowd around and watch from a distance as a beloved pop star flaunts the stage. Young adults chant the lyrics to our teenage anthems, led by a girl who has climbed up onto her friend’s shoulder for a better view. It is bizarre to think that the songs we listened to nearly a decade ago, small sentimental tunes from the wired earphones of our high school smartphones, would one day be blasted across a stadium to thousands of like-minded weirdos like me.
I turn around to greet the two strangers next to me, and exchange greetings about our names and our studies. We share music tastes and reminisce on our favourite albums. Not long after, my new friends swap Instagram handles and make plans to meet again.
But for now, we continue singing songs of broken hearts and forgotten friends. Of being young and growing old. The songs continue late into the night until the music stops and we all pile through the stadium gates to make the dreaded journey home.
Is this what youth is meant to be?
I’m taking the train home from work.
I sit carefully beside an old friend, too tired to engage in conversation. We make small talk about our new roles and what we hope to achieve in the coming months, but they are punctuated with quiet pauses as we each drift in and out of sleep. The train rocks us back and forth at different stations, and with each stop a new cast of characters enter the vehicle.
In the distance, a small group of teenagers shout across the carriage, throwing expletives and insults without any regard for public decency. I wonder, through my half-asleep state, whether my friends and I were ever like that when we were in middle school. I hope not. I look back as the teenagers scare away several adults. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Is this what youth is meant to be?
I’m struggling to express my feelings productively.
I feel worthless, hopeless, out-of-control. I am liked by everyone, but valued by none. I have plenty of friends and family, and yet I feel so alone. Years of built-up frustrations and repressed feelings come spilling out in loud outbursts, often garbled and sometimes nonsensical.
But I am screaming into a dark empty void.
They aren’t listening to me, instead I am rude and stubborn and selfish as always. I am reaching my limit. I wish to be somewhere else, somewhere far away where no one can hurt me. I want to lament in silence without the fear of upsetting others.
I want to be by myself.
I want to be myself.
Is this what youth is meant to be?
I’m listening to waves crash against the beaches of a foreign country.
I take the adventurous leap and embark on a journey to “find myself”. Maybe I can find the meaning of life in rural Europe, or reach an existential breakthrough while in a Japanese convenience store.
I am excited and scared and very, very lonely.
Local storefronts line the town streets as I make my way closer to the strong winds of the beach. I stare out into the distant horizon, watching the water meet the sky halfway. I wonder what it would be like to be out there — floating aimlessly in my watery purgatory—but I come back to the feeling of cement against my feet. I feel relieved once more.
Is this what youth is meant to be?
The decade of opportunity
When we think of our youth, images spring to mind of attractive 20-something’s posing for Instagram photos, crowding around a music festival or flaunting their summer tan at the beach. We imagine our high school friends, now a little older, holding certificates next to important people, sitting on flights with friends, standing at the altar, and holding newborn babies.
But with it attracts plenty of comparisons.
I have yet to backpack across Europe. I have yet to finish my degree. I have yet to cook a meal for a loved one or worry about bills or buy my own car or rave or run a marathon or publish a book.
Is this what youth is meant to be?
In my dreams, I am visited by a late relative who asks if I am enjoying my youth. I think about the experiences I have yet to have, and compare myself to the highlight reels of my friends’ Instagrams.
It is a weekend night and I am in my bedroom typing out this Medium piece. It is the same corner desk that I have sat in since my childhood — building legos, finishing essays, making short films, calling my friends, and stalking classmates on Facebook.
All the posters and figurines that lay on my desk are the same as its always been, and yet a thin layer of dust tells me it has been quite some time since they first got here.
I am physically the same person, but I am also remarkably different at the same time. In the mirror, a grown man stares back at me and I wonder when did I grow so tall, or when did my shoulders get broader.
I feel lost and scared and worried about being left behind.
The butterflies bounce around in my stomach, pushing me to try harder, work faster, be stronger. The world is an oyster waiting for me to discover. It is a world of endless possibilities, just as it is a world of endless dangers.
Maybe this is what youth is meant to be.
