the prize and currency of my youth

There’s been, for as long as I can remember, a near-obsession with experience inside of me. I wanted to have every human experience possible made available to me. I wanted to do everything, to be everything. 

I never really feared getting older. No, really! I don’t…I mean, everyone has to at some point. I guess it was the though of losing my ability to capitalize on my youth. Capitalize on beauty, sexuality, innocence. I was keenly aware of how fleeting it all was. What I’m saying is, the prize and currency of youth was never lost on me. People often talk of being young, of remembering waiting and wishing for 16,18,21,25….I never felt this way. I took pride in my youth always, and feared growing older. The humdrums of grownup life mystified, bored, and terrified me all at once. I never wished to be older. 

As I grew in years, I felt more and more choked by the icy hands of all the lives I was not living. This is not a unique feeling (please see for reference, Syliva Plath’s poem about the fig tree in The Bell Jar) but It’s an affliction I still have yet to learn how to cope with. If we’re being honest, I don’t think I ever will.