What Does It Mean To Be Young?

Originally posted on Opinionated Duck

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What does it mean to be young? Is it to be born after a certain date? Is it to think that thirty is old? Or, is it a feeling of infinity?

To be young can be defined by more than one action, more than one feeling, because it is more than one thing.

It is your love of walking barefoot across the grass; the new carpet; the sand. The carefree attitude in which the feeling of the world touching your skin is the most natural and most beautiful of all sensations.

It is our craving for direction but our hesitance in following the paths that we are shown. Our contradictive nature in which we dismiss what we want to be shown once we are shown it, what we want to hear once we hear it, what we want once we have it.

To be young is to wear his parents shoes; seemingly a hundred sizes to big for his tiny feet. But, to be young, is also to spend a night under the stars, roaring with laughter, as our broken pieces are glued back in place by the smiles of our company.

It is the way we stayed up until four in the morning and you poured your heart out to me; trusting me with things you had never trusted others before and teaching me that the hardships of your life were very different to those of hers, his, and mine. The way you made me feel as if I mattered to you, which was a compliment in itself.

To be young is to pick the crimson flower and hand it your mother, only to find out that it was a wild flower and wild flowers should not be picked for they will not grow back again. It’s the way that you cried because you realised that, sometimes, by doing a good thing, you can do something worse.

It’s the way she missed people like a part of her heart was missing; the way wished for them to return to her side and stay close, as if it was something she needed to survive; because it was something she need to survive.

The way we sat up in the dark and told of a day where we would rule the country and how everything about the world we lived in now would be fixed; perfect to our standards. It’s the way we could not understand why the faults with society had not been ironed out already, with such glaring solutions available.

To swoon, to love, to lose. To play, to be mischievous, to dare.

To be young is to be at the peak of our liveliness; never wanting to grow out of the liberating feeling of exuberance. To have the energy to stay up all night and go out all day, without the assistance of caffeine.

It’s the way we spoke of pointless questions at 3:27am (black or blue inked pens?) simply because we were too tired to talk of much else.

It is the way that we are so passionate about things we believe in and how diverse each of our opinions are. How we each have the ability to share our opinions and disagree with dignity and poise, something that many grow out of.

To be young is to be unable to be explained; to be such a complex being in such a simple way. To be young is to make mistakes, learn and develop. To be young is defy expectations.

What does it mean, to you, to be young? Let me know in the comments below.