I: Finding Your Inner Teenager

I don't know about you but I think I skipped out on a large part of adolescence.

I met a 14 year old girl tonight, a daughter of a family friend, and I was in awe of being in the presence of a mature, confident, extroverted, and intellectual young lady.

First, it made me feel old for some strange reason to be giving her high school and university advice. But even more remarkable was that the moment I sat down, she started a conversation with me so naturally and uninhibitedly that I couldn't help but think about myself at her age.

Dude, I can't even pull that kind of stuff off now.

Of course we talked about teenage things as well, like how she begged her mom to let her get her navel pierced or how her dad won't let her drive until she's 18, but she also had concerns about the climate crisis and how she thought society was regressing rather than progressing due to power and money being in the hands of an elite and rich few, which she likened to the days of monarchical reign in Europe.

I don't think I had a stance on anything until I was 20, and that was only because my Arts One course in university served as a catalyst.

Don't get me wrong--in general, I think that the youth of today are a bit misguided and lacking respect and work ethic. Plus they are being raised on Hannah Montana and High School Musical (sorry to my friend who likes HSM, you know who you are) rather than the Disney Classics and The Sound of Music. And I can say that media and the deterioration of the family unit, etc., are to blame for all of the above...

But really, all I want to feel sometimes is that spark of teenage excitement--and looking back, I was never the type to really submit to it. If I'm being honest, real fun has only come to me in my twenties. Before then, all I had was carefully-measured, fleeting, sporadic units of fun.

Let the floodgates open, my friends. It's time to think like a teenager if you never did before. Allow yourself to live like an Italian: enjoy each day, be present in each moment, and, once in awhile, let your emotions rule you...just like the Madrid teenagers photographed above.