[9 / 3 / 1]
Quoted By:
>>100056
I turned 23 a couple of months ago and it’s truly beginning to dawn on me that I can’t turn the clock back. You see, I was 16 when the COVID lockdowns began. Back then it felt like the whole world was ahead of me. Truthfully, I hoped something like COVID would happen every day before school: some sort of catastrophe that would allow me to stay home for months.
Well, like everything else in my life, it was handed to me. I slowly became a NEET. I didn’t get good enough grades to enter the university I wanted. I’ve been in and out of community college for years, not knowing what to study. After years of infrequent employment and college enrollment, I have to face up to the fact that I no longer have forever.
It has been seven years since I was 16. In seven years I will be 30. In two years, I will be 25 - the age in which physical aging begins. My physical peak is rapidly approaching, and my adolescent youth lost. I am truly no longer a “kid”.
I never went out with my high school friends, we stayed inside and played video games online. I never did all the normal teenager things I see teenagers do when I go to the mall. It hurts a little. No, it hurts a lot, that I never did those things. It hurt when I WAS in high school, seeing those normal teens do normal teen things. Seven years later, it hurts less but… it still hurts.
But I’m not decrepit. I only obtained the right to purchase alcohol two years ago. Two. Just two. Am I young? No. But I sure as hell ain’t old. I can never redo high school. I may never redo college. I may never have a “normal” college experience. Of course it hurts. It hurts I wasn’t a normal kid, but an autistic nerd. Of course I am filled with regret.
But I need to learn to look forward, not back, because that’s what I’ve been doing for the past five years. It’s felt like life has slipped from my fingers, but I’m not barred from it. I just need to accept the mistakes I made, and learn. I can never be a kid again, but I can be an adult.
Those movies and TV shows I watched over the years, with the “normal” high school and college experiences… only the privileged get those things. Only they get those “memories”. I may never have that, but maybe I can have something new. Something that isn’t based off a Hollywood fantasy of youth. So I accept it. I’m not a kid anymore and I never will be again. It doesn’t matter how depressing my life has been, I will just look forward.
Well, like everything else in my life, it was handed to me. I slowly became a NEET. I didn’t get good enough grades to enter the university I wanted. I’ve been in and out of community college for years, not knowing what to study. After years of infrequent employment and college enrollment, I have to face up to the fact that I no longer have forever.
It has been seven years since I was 16. In seven years I will be 30. In two years, I will be 25 - the age in which physical aging begins. My physical peak is rapidly approaching, and my adolescent youth lost. I am truly no longer a “kid”.
I never went out with my high school friends, we stayed inside and played video games online. I never did all the normal teenager things I see teenagers do when I go to the mall. It hurts a little. No, it hurts a lot, that I never did those things. It hurt when I WAS in high school, seeing those normal teens do normal teen things. Seven years later, it hurts less but… it still hurts.
But I’m not decrepit. I only obtained the right to purchase alcohol two years ago. Two. Just two. Am I young? No. But I sure as hell ain’t old. I can never redo high school. I may never redo college. I may never have a “normal” college experience. Of course it hurts. It hurts I wasn’t a normal kid, but an autistic nerd. Of course I am filled with regret.
But I need to learn to look forward, not back, because that’s what I’ve been doing for the past five years. It’s felt like life has slipped from my fingers, but I’m not barred from it. I just need to accept the mistakes I made, and learn. I can never be a kid again, but I can be an adult.
Those movies and TV shows I watched over the years, with the “normal” high school and college experiences… only the privileged get those things. Only they get those “memories”. I may never have that, but maybe I can have something new. Something that isn’t based off a Hollywood fantasy of youth. So I accept it. I’m not a kid anymore and I never will be again. It doesn’t matter how depressing my life has been, I will just look forward.
