A disease we don't even know we have

If one more person over fifty tells me to enjoy my youth (‘It’s the most exciting time of your entire life!’), I think I’ll tackle them. I don’t think that I’ll be able to stop myself physically tackling them. I don’t know if they’ve forgotten what youth is like, or whether what they’re saying is true, so I’m either just the only teenager ever not having the best time of my life, or the rest of my life is going to be even more boring and depressing than what I’m experiencing right now. And I can’t figure out which I prefer, honestly. 

I have dreams and ambitions, but no money and nowhere to begin. I have people I’d like to get to know, but they’ll never want to get to know me. I look awesome on my instagram posts, but my life will never be like that. So what am I? Having the most exciting time of my life? I sure as hell hope not. 

These thoughts stream across my head approximately fourteen hundred times a day. I watch and hear about people having awesome parties, kissing each other, trying new things with their even cooler friends, and I sit at home with nothing to do except think about these things. What kind of a world is this for me? 

Yes, I of course realise my privilege, if these are my worst concerns. But just because someone’s doing worse than I happen to be doing, does that mean that I have to be happy all of the time? Is that a rule? Is it politically incorrect to be questioning this rule? Is it.. dare I say it? Is it a sin? If so, allow me to change the rules for a moment. I’ll make it a sin to forbid me sharing my first world problems. And you better listen to me while I do it. 

My case isn’t the worst case, and I know that. I do have a couple of extremely good and close friends. Issue is, they all live like two years away from me, so it feels lonely. It really does. Because then I sit there, alone, watch the oh so cool people dance on my feed, and I know that I’m cool enough too, or at least I tell myself that, but I don’t feel it. What’s it going to take for me to feel cool? Going to that party maybe? Possibly. But is that also accepting the way the world works? Am I supposed to change the way our social issues are dealt with? I want to do that, but how? And who’s going to help me?

If I was to go to the party, they wouldn’t especially want me there. They’d be kind, say hello, but never expect me to stay and join them. That would be weird, bugging in on their exclusive party. And would it even make me feel cool? Being there but not really being there? Would it be enough to post an instagram story with them, and then leave to return to my house of depressing thoughts? Maybe in the moment. But then I’d feel out of it again. And following this, I’d hate myself for having given into the superficiality of it all. Would it be weak of me to do that?  

But what’s the other option? Stay at home and hate myself? Hate my fate? Blame my fate for putting me where I am instead of with these other people? I mean, what are the odds of me being outside of the community and not inside it? Was it me? Did I do something? No, I won’t go down that road. Not yet. 

I could also chose to leave this place and find a new community, possibly a more accepting one. But is it even possible that this superficiality is only found in this exact place, the exact same location as I am found? Is it only here, where my fate happened to bring me into the world, that we find this sort of social hierarchy and loneliness? If so, it would be easy to leave. Or would it?

You see, even if I left, this longing to be a part of their awesomeness is so intertwined in my very core by now, and would it ever leave me? Would it set me free, or would I forever search for this? And this brings forwards another deeply interesting question. Is this longing for coolness what keeps the longing of the coolness going?

Let me explain before you lose trust in me. If everyone, even the people who are inside of the community, have longed or are longing to enter it and truly feel cool, everyone must be actors and actresses in this play that is taking place? Everyone will be experimenting and trying to reach this high, and within these experiments, everyone are treading on everyone to try and feel cool themselves, but in reality, the result is that everyone is feeling tread on and insecure.  

And I just had an awakening. Maybe, it would be possible to leave. But the ‘leaving’ doesn’t necessarily require physical movement of myself, but actually leaving this world of insecurities and superficiality which only takes place in my mind. So this thing that feels like wanting to be a part of this group of cool people, is it really that, or is it simply my insecurities playing games with me? And is it possible to leave this deadly disease?

If you ask me - it is. It has never been about where in the world this superficiality is found. It’s about where in our minds, it is found. I will be able to leave it, I must! This disease is curable! But only when the true reason is found, and when it is discovered what we indeed are in need of. I’m in need of myself. At the end of the day, until I meet my own group, all I have will be myself. And at the end of the day, I’ll learn to rest in that fact. It’ll be okay, because it doesn’t mean that I’m less than others. It means that I’ll meet my people later in life. It’ll all be okay. 

So as I step into the sunshine of the longest day of the year, and I walk past a group of laughing people my age, I don’t turn to walk the other way. It’s alright that I’m walking alone. Instead, I keep my head high, I rest in the fact that I am who I am, and I smile at them, and they smile back. All they ever needed was just a smile and an ‘you’re okay, it’s okay’. They’re not different than I am, we all want the same, and we all want to be cured from this disease of insecurity. And so, I walk on, smiling and somewhat confident - more than I was yesterday, anyway.