Farewell Youth

I've been thinking a lot about my formative years. Middle school was the first time in my life where I didn't feel like I was on steady footing, starting over at a new school as a new child of divorce. I'd always been a bit reserved, watching my (b)older sister dive into things headfirst and I'd learn by watching, garnering praise as the obedient one. And now here I was becoming a teen and losing all bearing on the world as I'd known it. Those three years feel like a blank space that holds the answers to a lot of the patterns I came to develop. The coping mechanisms I found as a new sensation I'd come to identify as anxiety introduced itself and never let go.

I can't help but look at these years as a branching path in the wrong direction, one that I was ill-prepared to handle and bad habits were learned to get through. I really wish I could remember more from those years, it almost feels like I'm protecting myself from reliving that period.

“Farewell youth, I'm afraid I hardly got to know you.”