Youth is the rushing years of confused consciousness, when the mind and heart are out of tune, and you want to find scales and weights. Journalist Daria Korolkova - about why she does not want to return at this time and what important thoughts come with age.
I recently read a poignant and very sincere text about how a woman yearns for her youth. More precisely, by itself - a young, thin-ringing, whose whole life was ahead, who experienced everything for the first time.
I read and understood that I am arranged somehow differently. I absolutely do not want to become a 17-year-old again, I do not even want my 17-year-old appearance back, although I was 7 kg slimmer than now, and my forehead was smooth without any Botox.
Why? Well, it is logical to want to be younger and better quality. But this is the case. I have never measured my "quality" by the novelty of impressions and the thickness of the waist. Moreover, at the age of 17 I was terribly afraid to live. Here is a young guy saying compliments: sincerely or is he planning what? Does he want to get sex and dump into the blue, or did he like me as a person? And if I also want to have sex with him, is this normal or am I a depraved girl on my way to the bottom of society? And if we sleep with him, and then he tells everyone that we slept, it will ruin my reputation forever? Or is it, on the contrary, cool to be sexually liberated?
And the clothes? Here I seem to have rather long and slender legs. Expose them to everyone's envy, and let them stack up? Or does it mean "show off"? Or maybe you shouldn't do this so as not to offend friends who are shorter or fuller? Or, on the contrary, to make yourself a couple of girlfriends shorter and fuller, and sparkle brighter against their background?
I have small breasts. Is it cool or is it a nightmare? I can wear T-shirts without a bra, is this my advantage or disadvantage? To dye your hair or not? Get a haircut or grow a braid? A colleague compliments: is an office romance acceptable? Or is it better to refuse right away? What if it's love? But my salary - is it cool or not? With whom should and how should you compare yourself? Give me the scales and weights! I do not understand where the norm is, where is not the norm, what should be? I want to be good and like everyone, but I don't understand how, because there are so many mutually exclusive requirements around!
That is, years before … now it seems to me that it is 30, but perhaps the more realistic figure is 25, I measured myself “about others”. To be honest, I still don't know what the real me was - the spill of the late 90s and early 2000s. I replayed the script all the time. At 20, it seemed to me that in front of me was a gorgeous yacht sailing off into the sunset, on which I was celebrating the presentation of a prestigious award to me (I talked about this here), then I was hitting myself on my dreams and returned to the reality in which the ultimate dream was "Zhiguli”By the age of 30 and a place of the head of the district newspaper department at best. I did not understand how smart I am and how capable of learning new things I am, how much I am in demand, whether I can upgrade my license and demand a promotion, or I need to grab my teeth into a place, because I can't find it better.
My state of inner happiness was completely dependent on others. Praised? Hooray! Appreciated? Cool! Cursed? I am a nonentity … I leaned on others like a fence, hoping it was strong enough. And she was terribly afraid that I would lean against - and the fence would collapse, and I would find myself in a ditch.
And this eternal fear of turning in the wrong direction, making a mistake, screwing up is youth for me. Want it back? Yes, not in life.
Now I know for sure that medium-length hair suits me more than a short haircut, that the most spectacular skirt length for me is right up to the knee, that things that fit my ass look great on me, but that tight-fitting breasts do not. I know how to lose weight without going on an exhausting diet or torturing myself in the gym (I'll write very soon, don't miss it), I unmistakably choose among fashion trends those that will decorate me and skip those that spoil me.
From the first communication session, I determine how interesting I am to a person and in what capacity. From a mile away I see attempts to “glue” and distinguish them from the intention to “have a nice chat without commitment,” and no, both of these cases are not about sex. When they want sex, I see it too.
It looks like a sketch, they say, such a Tortilla is sitting, she knows everything. No, of course not all. Of course, there are people who are wiser, more experienced, smarter, with better analytical skills, more insightful and make fewer mistakes. Here I envy them a little, and, honestly, I hope that more calm awaits me ahead. Great wisdom. Great confidence.
My daughter is 17 years old and I see a reflection of myself in her. Inaccurate, she has a completely different character and personality, but this one is "shorter, more authentic", "dark or light", "and can drop everything and go to college", "to enter or go to work", all these are those the same eggs, only a side view. She, at her 17, is just as frightened by the large and complex world in which she only has to find her way, periodically falling and rising, receiving jabs and applause.
Therefore, the most frequent topic in our personal conversations with her is my stories that everything will be fine. Everything will work out, it is not so scary to make mistakes, and from the irreparable in life there are, perhaps, only drugs and children.
And if I could go back, at 17, I would have put myself on my knees and endlessly repeated that you are good, smart, capable, that everything will be fine, good, good. I am small anyway would not have believed myself big. At 17, you believe either everyone or anyone, and you don't know which is worse.
And that is why I do not want to go back to these rushing years of confused consciousness, when the mind and heart are out of tune, and I want to find scales and weights. To come to the conclusion that all the scales and weights are yourself, and you don't need to please anyone, and don't give a damn who and what thinks about the length of your skirt, the size of your chest and your position, you have to live these years. Just as a wisdom tooth does not grow immediately, and it takes a long time to cut, so this growing up is not easy. But what happiness lies ahead of us! If I knew about this at 17, I would have saved a bunch of nerve cells.
Because the coolest and coolest thing is to know that you are your own fence. That you can resist because you personally mixed the mortar and laid it brick by brick. And before that she burned every brick in the oven, and you know: there is not a single bad one. And if there is, then it is better not to rely here, but to replace it as soon as possible. My eyes will not become smaller from the fact that someone does not like them, and professional achievements are less significant if the spiteful critics behind their backs say "pumped", "sat down", "by pull." I know everything about myself. And I may have a difficult road ahead, but I know how to choose comfortable shoes.
And the wrinkles … Well, you know the answer, right? Botox.
