I’m sure a lot of people have figured this out about me if you’ve known me for a while, but I’ve always been one of those people who just understands a lot more than my peers. And while I have friends, I just constantly feel like I’m surrounded by children. Or monkeys. And sometimes people want to learn or try to understand, but it has always felt like most people don’t. And I don’t mean everybody, obviously. When you’re raised into a family with a sister 11 years older and a brother 13 years older aside from your parents, it’s kinda hard to ever feel like you fit in with your own age group. You become attracted to older people. Your only friends eventually become half people over the age of 25 and half people who have the same mindset. I know a lot of people can connect with me about this, especially those who just feel like you’re “above” everyone. This isn’t me being all special snowflake about it, it’s just how it’s always been for me. Since like, fifth grade. That probably pitches into my depression too but that’s another post. I just always feel older than everyone around me.
And the thing about this all is, I like it, I always have. For example, I liked being above the middle school drama before it even hit me. I liked that I knew what to expect because I had someone who had already been through it tell me how much it sucks and that it’s going to happen no matter what and that I just had to deal with it without getting too involved. I liked being the person everyone turned to for that because they knew I understood when it seemed like no one else did. And now, I like being politically aware and involved in movements and finally passionate about great things. No, I LOVE it. But no one ever told me how fucking exhausting it is. No one ever told me that this great understanding of life that I’ve been granted with will probably end up killing me. There is so much I want to take in. So much I try to take in. I have my big, important issue, but I read so much about other big, important issues, and I realize that THEY ALL TIE TOGETHER. EVERYTHING I care about all leads back to the same issue.
Once you become aware of this stuff, there’s no way to not know. Once you realize how fucked up everything is there’s no way to ever look at the world in the same way you used to. And knowing all of this isn’t making life miserable for me, and it’s not exhausting to me because I’m trying so many different ways to save the world, it’s just exhausting KNOWING things. People only say that ignorance is bliss because it’s less exhausting than knowing so much, but that doesn’t make it better.
