I wish I lived the part of my life when I was supposed to be 'young and stupid'. I don't think I've ever been young or stupid.
As a child, every adult told me I was a grown up in a little kid's body. My parents praised me for being so mature. And my dad told me I was such a good daughter when I looked after my sister because he was too burnt out to cook dinner after his second divorce. Somewhere in that it got lost that I was a child. I became a confidant of secrets I shouldn't have known, a therapist for adult issues.
And I was never stupid because I was awarded for my smarts and logic. I was the model child who was paraded around and introduced like a ventriloquist doll, spouting literary analysis at dinner parties for adults to small talk over. But it meant my analytical brain ran through every scenario too quickly to take any risk. I didn't jump off the jungle gym because I knew I put myself at risk of breaking a bone. I never had a first love because I knew it statically couldn't last. I had learnt that people break promises they swore to keep, they could lie without realising it.
And now I am grown, I'm praised for being wise but admonished for being reserved. They don't realise that wisdom is the prize of adversity, a trophy for trauma. A scar covering a deep wound. And the walls I keep up are from years of learning too soon that people can hurt you as much as they love you.
To be young and stupid is to experience the world with the naivety that this moment starts and ends here. I wished I had let myself have that.
