Your age is something that is beyond your control, that’s no secret. The youth long to be taken seriously and the elder long for youth, but regardless of how old you are, both ends of the spectrum can easily be targeted with offensive slurs. Youth is often associated with being naive. Old age can be deemed useless or washed up, but I’m slowly beginning to learn you can’t put a number on age.

Lately, I’ve been receiving a healthy amount of grief for being so young. As a relatively new resident to the city of Atlanta, most of my friends (or acquaintances) I have met average to be a slightly higher range than you would expect. Being that I am 19 (turning 20 May 4th, mark your calendars) I tend to be labelled as “naive”, “inexperienced”, “innocent”… In retrospect, I will attest that I do have a slight tint of these qualities compared to my peers, however, I can’t seem to pinpoint age as the predominant factor behind it all. 

It’s hard to say that a person of age 25 is going to be “older” than one at 19. Yes, I know how to read a number line, but it’s all in your experience as a person. Being that one of 25 would have an additional 6 years in the running, it only makes sense that the elder would indeed be more stable, experienced, and wise. On the other hand, I believe being older also means wanting better for yourself, the community, and realizing there is so much more to life than sex, drugs, and alcohol. I can’t say it won’t happen to me, so maybe I am naive. But I can’t help but feel I’m being set up only to fall into darkness, and at the end of the fall lies a strong surface waiting to break you upon hitting the bottom. I suppose that’s what makes you older, being broken and fixing yourself. I suppose that’s even what happened to my critics who were once young themselves.