"You're So Young"

    
"You're so young," reached my ears, and I wanted to burst out, "Fuck you!" I wanted to scream until my vocal chords burst. At least then I would physically be silent rather than socially. Instead, I smiled and treated it as a compliment.

I walked home anger boiling, tired of hearing that phrase. It reached my ears many times a year. It always seems more an insult than a compliment meant as a phrase to put someone in place. Or at least that's how its been used frequently in my life. I don't believe it was meant that way. But meaning sometimes has little to do with feeling. I felt hurt.

Toxicity grew. It stayed under my skin causing patch red itchiness, which I scratched until it scabbed. I snapped back to policy meetings where I was the tokenized young adult representative asked for violence prevention ideas only to be told that I was too naive; too young. I remembers workforce development teams where, as the youngest person at 30, my suggestions wouldn't work because they were "too out of the box" even though I had over five years of experience. I was sixteen again advocating for a letter in theater against the principals advice of "You're just a kid. You can't make it happen." Each one compounded the other. I was on fire. I was tired. I went to bed.

Tossing, turning, throwing blankets crowded dreams. A dark restlessness grew wanting an explosion. I woke early sad and went to work. Tuning in meant hopefully tuning out. It didn't work.

I left the apartment hoping wandering would replace restlessness. It, too, didn't work. "You're so young" kept repeating. "You're so young. You're so young. You're so young."

I know it was meant as a compliment. It was a comment from a elder meant more for them than for me. I just didn't hear it that way.

Maybe I need to listen better. Maybe I need to grow up. Maybe I need not replace my reaction with a metered response. Maybe I just need to be happy about being the youngest.

Soon, I won't be.

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