Thinkings

I am an old soul.

While others my age are out binge drinking, having unprotected premarital sex and exploring the limits of their physical bodies, I am sitting at home listening to Ella Fitzgerald and contemplating my life. Why can't I just go out and live it and forget the consequences?

My friend Pinetree is afraid to fall in love because of what might happen in the future, five or ten years down the road. Whereas I am afraid that I am incapable of falling in love. What happens when a person lives too much pain before their time? When someone is forced to live not only their own mistakes but the mistakes of their parents and theirs, learning from experience far before the experience presents itself? I almost think it is unwise to learn too much from someone else's mishaps. It takes all the fun out of doing it on your own. One day, you will wake up and realize that you haven't ever done anything worth punishing yourself for. Instead, you've been punishing yourself in advance. Instead of learning from love, I now avoid love because I have seen what it can do to people. The pain isn't worth it, I tell myself. I never drink, because I have seen what happens to those who do. I don't make out with strangers. I'm safer that way, I suppose.

However, my friends, it seems as if there is one consequence that I might have overlooked. Yes, I have saved myself the pain of making the wrong decisions. But I have also deprived myself of the fun that can be had in recklessness. I am a spinster at 21, and it is because I haven't drank, haven't felt, haven't been stupid, haven't lived in the moment. My whole life has been like this, a series of prudent saves. But from what? From living? From doing those things which everyone else does, the stupid and rash decisions that make us human? Yes, I am wise beyond my years. But perhaps wisdom can be another word for fear. I am an old soul. And I mourn for the premature loss of my youth.