You’re too young.
This is what I’ve get told through every year of my life. I’ve get told that I am too young for everything. ‘You’re too young to be in love.’ ‘You’re too young to feel pain.’ ‘You’re too young to live that life.’
How dare you? How dare you tell me that my feelings are invalid because I haven’t been on the earth as long as you? How is my love any less valid than yours? Is the life of a mouse not as important as that of an elephant? So how can the length of my life dictate the way I must feel?
How can you tell me that the pain everyday is not real because I’m too young? Chronic pain does not discriminate, there is no age limit. If I were sixty you’d have only sympathy for me, yet because I was sixteen there was nothing but criticism. Is my life less important because it’s shorter?
How can you be such a hypocrite? How is it possible to criticise me and my entire generation for being lazy? Yet in the next breath tell me that I’m too young to begin working or pursue the career of my dreams. How can you criticize me for all that I want and all that I don’t within the same sentence?
I may be young, but I am still alive. I am alive and thus my age is invalid. I am alive enough to feel love and pain. I am not too young to have dreams and aspirations. I am not too young to know the life I want and who I want to be.
So I apologize to you, I am sorry that in your years on the earth have been so empty that you envy the fullness of mine. I apologise that it angers you that this love and this pain and these aspirations are mine. For these things I apologise.
Please don’t take my apology as a promise to change because it is not. I have felt love and pain and had dreams since birth and all through my limited years. I will not stop at your expense, not now, not ever.
So please don’t tell me that I’m too young, as I fear it would be a waste of your limited breath.