chirp.chirp

13 10 / 2013

I found these copies of my old Young Star articles tucked among some books on one of my shelves today. I remember I used to collect all of them, from the first one I wrote (which was about the band Kjwan when they were first starting out). I stopped keeping them when a new maid used some of the copies to line Pony’s cage and litterbox—quite a clever way for the universe to tell me that my work was…not that great. Haha.
Looking through them gives me this overwhelming feeling of embarrassment because I wrote that? What the hell was I thinking? But at the same time, I can’t help but marvel that I used to be so brave. I used to pour all my teenage angst out into the biggest national broadsheet for hundreds of thousands of people to (potentially) read on a weekly basis. The thought scares me now at 26, but I don’t think it occurred to me when I was 17. (I was, at times, more candid in those articles than I am here. Man.)
We’re so brave when we’re young. Foolish, maybe, but brave, and we don’t even realize it. We put so much of ourselves out there in the hope that someone will reach back and tell us that they understand, that they are the same. (It’s actually so optimistic, and I find it funny now that I’m saying that of a time when I considered myself the complete opposite.)
As we grow older, the world whittles that bravery away. The world shows us its true face, magnificent but dark, and full of pain and pleasure in equal measure, and we’re forced to learn to be careful. To hide ourselves away.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I don’t know if I’d trade whatever hard-earned wisdom I have now for just a smidgen of teen spirit, but sometimes, I want to remember what it feels like to be so young and to be so unafraid.

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26 8 / 2013