There is truth though, to the statement "You'll understand when you're older." Basic biology teaches us that the frontal cortex of the brain has yet to fully develop and this helps you process your perception of the future (1). Right now, every thing seems permanent, there is no future and your life now is all that you can chemically understand. Add in a dash of childhood pains, hormones, growth spurts, and general awkwardness and you've got the makings of a really great emo band.
But that's the truth. You won't ever understand but as I'm sure everyone has already told you, it does in fact get better. Happiness really is what you make it and if that is true, then you not only have the opportunity but the responsibility to find what makes you happy. There isn't room for more bitter, insecure dicks in this world. You have to work for this happiness and it's hard work. You can't simply get a job and buy more makeup to be happy. You can't join a gym and look like -who's a popular hottie these days you kids all like?- to be happy. You can't make good grades and satisfy all your parent's expectations to be happy. You can't kiss ass and make everyone like you to be happy. You can't get super rich and buy a bunch of friends to be happy.
Nope. Hate to break it to you. Real work is required. Real work like internal searching and learning and growing. Real work like facing the parts of yourself that you hate. Real work like forgiving people who have hurt you. Real work like letting go of the control you think you can have over your life. Real work like accepting your faults and accepting the faults of others. Real work like making decisions that go against what is acceptable. Real work like risking being dumped and shame and public ridicule for being who you've chosen to be. Real work like rejecting the coward in all of us who tells us to just stay quiet. Real work like making mistakes and owning them, not hiding them like your parents do. Real work like correcting yourself and not waiting for society to do it for you. Real work like facing fear, accepting the fear, and going out to kick ass anyway.
When you turn 18, there is no magical fairy that grants all your wishes. You will still be awkward, confused, and alone. But you already have the power to decide how to deal with that. You can get bitter and be a dick or you can move on and be awesome. Your general distrust of adults is cool because it means that you are smart and you can see through the lies they tell you to placate you. The truth is that a lot of them have rejected any hope of happiness and while they are offering you the best advice they know to give, it sounds like bull shit because it is. They have found themselves either incapable or unwilling to do the work that is required and so they chose an impossible quest: to find happiness through fulfilling superficial needs.
As you are intelligent enough to see, it isn't working out so well. They were told that they would understand when they are older and they were lied to. They still don't understand.
So what makes me so special? I'm willing to do the hard work. I was stubborn then and I am now and I will probably be like this forever. I refuse to let others dictate my happiness because 1) I've learned that I can't always trust others to have my best interest in heart and 2) I'll be damned if someone else takes credit for my success (or failure for that matter).
Yesterday I watched a documentary called "Mortified." It was really cute and was basically normal every day people standing up in front of a large audience and reading excerpts from their adolescent diaries. It was funny because the feelings were real but seemed so silly. It was about owning shame and owning who you are. It was funny, not because we like to laugh at dumb kids, but because it was therapeutic. Those dumb kids needed validation and love and acceptance. It was funny because as smart mature adults, those longings seemed so obvious, so why is it that so many adults can't meet these needs in their kids? If we're so smart now, then why did we feel this way at one time? That's why it was funny. It sort of proved that we never know everything and sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is laugh. God created humor so we can process the things we can't explain.
It reminded me that words aren't always enough so here is some practical advice to my teenage self, keep creating art. Your drawings may not be the best and maybe no one wants to hang your picture on the fridge anymore, but you aren't doing this for the approval of others. You are smart enough to know who you are by now and while that may not be the piece of knowledge you find most comforting, you know you aren't going to get that any where else. Right now, it's scary, but knowing who you are will prove to be one of your main securities.
One day you will accept yourself when it seems like no one else does. One day the people who rejected you will confess that they were simply intimidated by you. You will realize at that point that if you could come back here and change it all, you wouldn't because it wasn't worth it now and it won't seem worth it then.
I think I've broached a time paradox...
I'm an adult now and these things really truly happened. When mom told me in middle school that the girls picked on me because they were jealous, she really wasn't lying. She wasn't saying that just to make me feel better. I am a bad ass and one thing I do understand now is why they were jealous. I'd be jealous too if I was a bitter dick weed and didn't want to work for my happiness, then some tiny chick comes prancing through all confident and weird. I get why you hate on it.
When dad told me that boys find pretty girls intimidating and that since boys didn't talk to me, it didn't mean I was ugly, it didn't mean I should shave or wear makeup like the other girls, it meant I was terrifying, he wasn't lying. He wasn't saying that just to make me feel better. I get that now. It didn't hurt that some guys will actually tell 19 year old Zoe that 15 year old Zoe scared the shit out of them. Sometimes you will get external validation.
But if I could tell myself anything at that age, it wouldn't be "don't rely on other people's opinions of you" cos I didn't at the time. It would be more like, "I know you don't give a fuck, but that is okay." My deficiencies and insecurities didn't come from the lack of external reinforcement of who I am, I didn't need that part of me to be accepted. I needed to be told that I was right in rejecting that acceptance. It was okay that I didn't care about it. I was insecure because I thought that since I didn't care, that made me wrong in some way.
So we don't know or understand much, to be honest. I know a lot of adults my age and older, some with kids and some divorced, some with successful careers and some living with mom and taking out the garbage. But the truth is their success isn't predicated by these external symbols. Some are happy and some aren't, sometimes it's an obvious explanation and sometimes it isn't. Life doesn't provide glamour and standing up and breathing doesn't mean you will be successful. The natural process of aging, your body breaking down, doesn't make you smart. The fact that some people know more information than you doesn't make them better than you are more capable than you.
Age doesn't make you stronger. You're already strong and facing what is inside of you, having the guts to do that, will pay off. It doesn't make sense now and you probably won't understand when you're older. But I'm older now, I don't get it, and I'm okay with that.
1) The Teen Brain
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