Most millennials complain that their parents don’t understand them. They will never understand how losing the WiFi connection during a livestream of the NBA Finals is a matter of keeping your job because your boss loves to schmooze with fellow fans. Or how a picture of your fifth-grade self pre-baby-fat-loss could be the end of your social life as you know it.
But they also can’t understand the difference between being sad and being depressed. They don’t see how hard we try to make them proud so we cry when we disappoint them, and they only think we’re overreacting when we fail a test by one point. They think we just can’t fall asleep, but apparently we’ve been diagnosed with insomnia, triggered by their constant nagging that if we don’t do well, this world will eat us alive.
Most adults seem to have forgotten that at one point in their lives, they were just like us. They were young and impressionable but didn’t realize it, thinking that they could change the world while it slowly changed them. At some point they failed in life. They keep themselves safe in a menial job, warning us to stick to what’s sure and keep from taking career risks. They put up walls around their hearts, vowing to never feel the same way again. They tell us we’re overreacting, not knowing how to help us because no one ever processed their emotions with them when they were in our shoes.
Not so with me. I wander through museums, and try to read the mind of the artist when he painted on the canvas I am looking at. Sometimes I would think of profound interpretations and marvel at the subtle messages the painter is conveying. Other times I would just laugh as I make up complete bull about what I’m seeing, and read a commentary that in no way matches what I saw. I eat food, because I’m hungry or because the textures and flavors provide an amazing experience of life or flavor. I revel in the beauty of what is and try unlock meanings from beneath. I talk to people; guard up or heart open, there is always a nugget of wisdom to be taken from them. And as best I can, I translate these experiences to my life.
I am nearing the dangerous pitfalls of adulthood, but I refuse to let life deceive me into hiding away my heart and who I am. I revel in what I see, what I taste, and what I feel. As I discover who I am and what life is about, I do not want to lock away my emotions and put myself in a position where I can no longer understand the hearts of the idealistic, the young, the impressionable. And so I will feel. So I will be. So I will write. And maybe, so I will change the world.
