For the past six years, I’ve been wanted. I’ve been courted, worshipped, wined and dined by the media. Companies have fallen over themselves to win my approval, complimenting my youth, designing clothing for me, creating electronics around what I found interesting. TV shows that didn’t meet with my approval were abruptly canceled, music that didn’t match my tastes plummeted to the bottom of the charts. Everything I touched smelled of roses; what I didn’t like couldn’t be thrown out fast enough.
That’s all coming to an end. At the end of the month I turn 24. My affair with the media is ending slowly with the messiest of breakups, the worst form of rejection; just as I come to realize my power, it’s taken away from me. One year I have left, one year during which companies will pay attention to what I do with my money, pollsters will be thrilled to hear my opinion, and focus groups will clamor for my participation. Come 25, it’s all over. I become a part of the larger “18-35” demographic, which exists only to please the baby-makers of the early thirties, the people who have already turned over for the next generation but remain convinced of their own importance.
It hurts all the more because I haven’t given it the appreciation it deserves. I haven’t properly enjoyed the privileges of youth. Three months before my tenth birthday, I started preparing for double digits. Ten was going to be a whole different playing field; it used up twice the number of spaces as nine. But when it came, ten didn’t feel as different as I thought it would. Just when I thought I had finally caught up with my fellow students, a month after I celebrated the glory of ten some had the nerve to go on to eleven. It wasn’t fair. I started looking towards eleven, those twin ones, oh-so-elegant in their parallel thinness, standing straight and tall side-by-side.
It became a yearly ritual; come September and the start of school, I looked ahead to my birthday, my chance to join my peers. I practiced my new age, answered my mirror’s question “How old are you?” with the next number in the ladder. Seventeen was my favorite. Seventeen seemed the height of glamour. Seventeen was the Sweet Valley High girls, senior year of high school when you can drive your friends to football games and shopping after school on Friday afternoons. Seventeen has its own magazine. But seventeen wasn’t that different from sixteen; life doesn’t change overnight on your birthday. You don’t get to wake up a sparkling new person.
This year my problem grew worse. My practicing has become powerfully delusional. A new acquaintance asked my age; “24,” I said confidently. But a few minutes later I realized I had three more months of 23 to live. And instead of becoming depressed with the confrontation of my immaturity, my inability to measure up because of my youth, I was overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Three months, gone. Three entire months of twenty-three, of influence and power, of youth and glory, gone.
And yet, what have I missed? Why do we glorify those six youthful years? The longer I think about it, the less sense it makes to me to laud someone for their youth. Sure, twenty-one year-olds can eat what they want without gaining weight, and they can drink all night without getting bags under their eyes for three days, and they can spend an entire paycheck on one item of clothing without spending sleepless nights feeling guilty about not contributing to their retirement fund instead, but have they accomplished anything noteworthy?
We glorify youth because they have yet to reach their potential. They haven’t let life’s worries get them down yet. The world is your oyster, the sky is the limit. And with these endless possibilities comes the a wonderful opportunity to realize your own potential. Forget the advertisers who think that youth is about beauty and power: youth is about finding yourself, exploring the world, deciding your path.
I’ve spent the last month mourning the loss of my youth, wallowing in self-pity for the lost opportunities of clubbing and dating, but it was misdirected; the real loss is of time spent recognizing myself. While I was sitting at home and watching NCIS reruns, my former classmates were traveling the world, volunteering for political campaigns, and getting down and dirty in medical internships. While I looked to the future, I glossed over the part where we begin to realize our potential. I skipped past the personal growth opportunities and headed straight for worrying about how to pay for my offspring’s college education (made all the more alarming when you realize I don’t have children).
I declare an end to the wallowing, to the mourning, to caring about what the advertisers think is important. No more waiting for my future to happen to me, no more practicing my next age. I have three hundred sixty seven days left until twenty-five, and I’ve started recognizing my potential: I wrote this down.
