** Disclaimer **
This blog post is, among other things, a very serious rant.
Now that I got the disclaimer off my chest here we go; what the fuck people? I’m so sick of hearing the expression: “You’re too young to…” [fill in the blank here as to what you’re referring to]
No man-made, man-influenced language or set of gestures can express the absolute and loathing hatred that I have for this phrase in general. It’s been said to me so many times I can’t even count it on all toes and fingers, multiplied by a hundred!
Why has society formed some timeline that everyone has to follow? Why is it that it’s such a bad things that people experience things, good or bad, at an age that is “inappropriate?” It simply is a social construct and needs to be done away with!
This phrase was most recently uttered to me by a Dutch friend of mine who will remain nameless, but who phrased it in this way:
You’re way too young to be so bitter
And of course, being the non-age-caring person that I am, I simply felt so belittled and irritated. Yes I’m a great deal more bitter than most people are after a lifetime, but perhaps some people don’t realize that despite being twenty-four years old, I might have lived a lifetime already?
This is in no way being a braggart, but I’ve traveled the world, been educated, worked, educated others, experienced a vast array of emotions and situations. How can someone after feeling like they have lived forty or so years, not feel as bitter as people at those age.
The senseless phrase “Oh you’re still young” is equally as belittling. Yes I’m bitter, and no I shouldn’t be, but why does it have to come to an agist way of associating youth with non-jaded or non-bittered experiences?