Lately I have been thinking about how I live among and interact almost solely with people older than me by half a decade at least, all of them adults. I run my blog as though I am an adult, I write like one and talk like one (at least on the internet.) People have been telling me I'm grad student passing since I was 14.
It should make me feel special. instead I just feel inadequate. I compare myself to the people around me and they're all older, they've lived longer, they have degrees. Why don't I have a degree? I ask myself, before I remember that I'm only 17.
So that sucks.
But when I try to hang out with people my own age, I feel like a genius. I feel like a towering behemoth of maturity and intellect. It's not a good or comfortable feeling. It makes me dysphoric. It makes me feel isolated, because most people I know who are my age don't share my interests, so I end up being awkward and lonely. It sucks.
So I guess I can either feel inadequate or isolated, and every time I'm given the choice I pick feeling inadequate. The inadequacy I can reason past and conquer. There is no cure for the isolation and loneliness.
But lately I've begun to wonder if I'm not hampering my own development. If I'm going to be a deeply screwed up adult (more than I was already going to be, that is) because I didn't hang out with enough teens.
So that's another layer of bullshit I must now think past. Yay.
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