The Lucky One

I went to a meeting a few weeks back where I met a myriad of people that I had only previously worked with via phone. And when they would see me, there was this brief pause at my face, my appearance...until finally one of the said, "You look so young to know so many things." WORD.

I get accused of serial youth at least once a week - with estimates pegging me often a decade younger than I am - the teenage girl painting my nails, the co-mixees at the stuffy mixers, the men I flag down in parking lots to take photos of their vintage cars...just whomever, I guess. It has made me fascinated by the idea and perception of youth. I usually give a flippant response about looking young because I do not have children but that cannot be it. Women of all ages have children, right? I want to grill these givers of compliments and understand their motives and reasoning. I want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

But then, are they compliments? Or, do I give the air of naivety or immaturity? I get excited thinking that this is what it is - that I can conceal any wisdom that I do have to gain entry into the depths of what people really want to say because they think I'm young and dumb.

When I was fifteen, a little girl asked me if I was a Mom because I had a purse.

When I was seventeen, I was never carded in the bars I shouldn't have been in.

When I was a small child I told people that I came ended up here because I had traveled from India in a hot air balloon. My relatives told me I was an old soul for even knowing that those things were things.

When I was a teenager, my mother and I would be mistaken for sisters. 

What the fuck even is YOUTH?

I have a triskele tattoo on my arm. I like the way it looks but I often feel like the poseur having it, because I would never become the mother - the birther. That I would be trapped in the eternal awkwardness of the wacky cousin. Or the jaded and metaphysical divorcee that owns too many batik tapestries and books about fairies whilst dressed like a dime-store Stevie Nicks. Okay - never that last thing.

But it leads me to believe that they are seeing the maiden and the birther, I think. When I see new mothers I notice their anxiety and exhaustion, but I also notice the proverbial glow - and until now I couldn't put my finger on what made it seem so. It is a birth not of their children, but a rebirth of themselves. And I've ushered it in for myself without actually having a child. Go me.

I went to a show alone this past weekend - The National with Daughter opening for them. I really hope that Daughter comes back around on their own. Their single, "Youth," is so beautiful and so true. I found their vibe so sweet but so knowing, or something.

It strikes me that there is some credence to recapturing my youth and believing in people again.

Shadows settle on the place, that you left

Our minds are troubled by the emptiness

Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time

From the perfect start to the finish line

We are the reckless

We are the wild youth

Chasing visions of our futures

One day we'll reveal the truth

That one will die before he gets there

And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones

'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone

We're setting fire to our insides for fun

Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home

It was a flood that wrecked this

Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silouhette

A lifeless face that you'll soon forget

My eyes are damp from the words you left

Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest...

That maybe I am slowly regaining the ability to believe again, and that allows some sliver of youth to come back - in a way that is shone on my face, it seems. It is so sad to me that if I am growing older that it means that I am jaded and that there is no ability to be vulnerable - so I am choosing not to believe that, even if I have no idea how to do it.

I didn't know how to do it the first time around, either.