Six Years Old

Don’t ever forget that you were once six years old. You can’t throw yourself into adulthood and suddenly think anyone who has a free formed opinion on life and humanism is below you.  So many people assume the position of being an adult and they get too caught up in what they think is expected of them that they forget that they were a six year old once in their life.  No matter how long ago that may have been, it is still who you once were.  Who is to say that who you were then was not who you were supposed to be?
I have very different ideas than the average nineteen-year-old, and because I’m unusual, and because I am for nonconformity and individuality, I am looked at by people (who are not much older than me) like the Engine that Could.  Look at that cute little one learning how to be a train.  I both reject and embrace the title of being a teenager.  Reject because it is discrediting to have your own philosophies and be a teenager at the same time.  “Nobody understands me,” right?  (Feel free to laugh now).  But yet I still embrace being called a teenager, because I am so sure of whom I am that I’m incredibly content with having most of my life to live and enjoy being myself.
I pity those who look down upon the youth for being who they are, because while we are happily discovering and rediscovering ourselves, they are miserable and limited and doomed by their own minds to resent the life they have.  Sure there are some teenagers who you are fully permitted to shake your head at in shame and be glad you weren't like, but never forget there are just as many adults who we look at with disgust and vow never to become.
I had a thought the other day that at first seemed like a desperate cry of a small child afraid of growing up, but as I let it resonate in my head, I realized how raw and viable my wish was.  More than anything, I want a chance in this world to become something other than miserable.  I am almost one-hundred percent certain that everyone growing up on the planet Earth has had a similar wish, to become something worth being, to stray from sadness, and to keep a livable life.  Happiness, much like the stereotypical perception of beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  You make yourself happy.
To quote one of my new favorite authors of all time, John Green, and a horribly magnificent book, The Fault in Our Stars, “the world is not a wish granting factory.”  Not everyone will end up as their six-year-old fantasy.  We won’t leave this world untouched by the destruction of life, but we can decide how we feel about the world.  You can choose to hate everything and everyone, but ultimately you’d never be happy.  You can only ever live in the shadows of happiness.
I am happy because I accept that I’m not just nineteen years old.  I’m seven years old, and fifteen years old, and three years old.  I’m everything I have ever been.
I’m happy because I love living.  I love being alive enough to feel pain, and remorse and guilt.  I love life.
Always remember you were, and always will be six years old.