A Natural Affinity
I think there is a natural affinity between older women and teenage boys.
OK, maybe it's just me.
The other day I was at the drugstore and there was this wan, pale boy with a lovely sculpted face but very washed out coloring. His hair was auburn but perhaps dyed. He looked sensitive and shy. He reminded me of a boy who loved me in high school. I was thinking: Gee, in high school I simply could not appreciate teenage rawness. You had problems? I just was looking for someone to listen to my problems. I was in hell and didn't know if I would survive. When other people spoke I was just counting the minutes for them to stop so I could ask them to save me.
Thus, not a useful companion for someone in the same boat. But then I see the teenage boys in all their sorrow and think: You will survive. If you could just listen to me, I'll tell you how you can make it through. Hide, wait and avoid major addictions and gun purchasing. In fact, I feel this way about teenage girls. I want to rescue them all from their idiot parents, lousy high schools and dead end jobs.
Now I suppose that for some of them it is a fun and happy time. But what is wrong with those types? It's sheer misery to those with any perceptiveness. I thought it then and I can say it now.
When my friend Randy died I was still technically a teenager but no longer in high school. I wished I could have saved him simply by being his friend. It still breaks my heart. I thought: There should be something to do for this...condition. Can I grow up to save the tormented teenagers.
The answer was no.
But what is the condition of tormented teenagerhood? Is it that you are too sensitive and thus notice too much about the ways in which the world is a pit? It can't be so simple as having a semi-adult mind without adult freedom. I don't think hormones cuts it either.
Someone might say: Yes Miel...but does it get any better? Aren't you at least somewhat carefree when a teenager in a semi-affluent (though inegalitarian) country with a free education system? You lack adult responsibilities, your body is young, strong...You have your whole life ahead of you, etc., etc. {I'm leaving issues of child labor, etc., aside here. Talkin' 'bout the lower middle to upper middle class just to be fair to whatever naive fool would make this argument.}
Isn't life just as bad. Nay, worse? At least when you were a teenager you could tell yourself you were going to be a rock star. Now you know that it's just day in and day out forever and ever. (Maybe it bothers you less...because you're dead inside.)
Unless you are good at denial. As I am. I made some kind of scary vow that I would always be an impulsive wreck and thus never boring as the adults I knew. I've come to regret that vow but just can't seem to get out of it.
All I can say is...for many of them, for myself back then: Whatever it looks like to you, adult-person, to be young for them it is often hell. What can I tell you? I don't know why.
So back to the natural affinity. If only my brain could have been put into that self-absorbed and tormented 15 year old so that I could actually listen to that poor kid who said he was in love with you. I was so busy trying to figure myself out. Now, I've just lost interest. I can't get to the bottom of things, of me. There is no bottom, there is no me. I'm finally capable of sympathy. I only hope that kid isn't dead...though he's no longer a kid. He was already on the verge of drinking himself to death at 20 (last time I saw him). If he's still alive, it is some genuine miracle.
(OK and then there's this)
I think there is a natural affinity between older women and teenage boys.
OK, maybe it's just me.
The other day I was at the drugstore and there was this wan, pale boy with a lovely sculpted face but very washed out coloring. His hair was auburn but perhaps dyed. He looked sensitive and shy. He reminded me of a boy who loved me in high school. I was thinking: Gee, in high school I simply could not appreciate teenage rawness. You had problems? I just was looking for someone to listen to my problems. I was in hell and didn't know if I would survive. When other people spoke I was just counting the minutes for them to stop so I could ask them to save me.
Thus, not a useful companion for someone in the same boat. But then I see the teenage boys in all their sorrow and think: You will survive. If you could just listen to me, I'll tell you how you can make it through. Hide, wait and avoid major addictions and gun purchasing. In fact, I feel this way about teenage girls. I want to rescue them all from their idiot parents, lousy high schools and dead end jobs.
Now I suppose that for some of them it is a fun and happy time. But what is wrong with those types? It's sheer misery to those with any perceptiveness. I thought it then and I can say it now.
When my friend Randy died I was still technically a teenager but no longer in high school. I wished I could have saved him simply by being his friend. It still breaks my heart. I thought: There should be something to do for this...condition. Can I grow up to save the tormented teenagers.
The answer was no.
But what is the condition of tormented teenagerhood? Is it that you are too sensitive and thus notice too much about the ways in which the world is a pit? It can't be so simple as having a semi-adult mind without adult freedom. I don't think hormones cuts it either.
Someone might say: Yes Miel...but does it get any better? Aren't you at least somewhat carefree when a teenager in a semi-affluent (though inegalitarian) country with a free education system? You lack adult responsibilities, your body is young, strong...You have your whole life ahead of you, etc., etc. {I'm leaving issues of child labor, etc., aside here. Talkin' 'bout the lower middle to upper middle class just to be fair to whatever naive fool would make this argument.}
Isn't life just as bad. Nay, worse? At least when you were a teenager you could tell yourself you were going to be a rock star. Now you know that it's just day in and day out forever and ever. (Maybe it bothers you less...because you're dead inside.)
Unless you are good at denial. As I am. I made some kind of scary vow that I would always be an impulsive wreck and thus never boring as the adults I knew. I've come to regret that vow but just can't seem to get out of it.
All I can say is...for many of them, for myself back then: Whatever it looks like to you, adult-person, to be young for them it is often hell. What can I tell you? I don't know why.
So back to the natural affinity. If only my brain could have been put into that self-absorbed and tormented 15 year old so that I could actually listen to that poor kid who said he was in love with you. I was so busy trying to figure myself out. Now, I've just lost interest. I can't get to the bottom of things, of me. There is no bottom, there is no me. I'm finally capable of sympathy. I only hope that kid isn't dead...though he's no longer a kid. He was already on the verge of drinking himself to death at 20 (last time I saw him). If he's still alive, it is some genuine miracle.
(OK and then there's this)
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