Youth is the Mean Girl

let her mock, you’ve already won

This is what peace, wisdom, and a few laugh lines look like.

It has occurred to me that youth is the mean girl taunting me from down the hallway, calling me ugly and telling me my outfit’s giving grandma. She mocks me for my inability to remember things, to use my phone properly, and to sign in to social media. She’s uncontrollably a mocker. I don’t think she even knows what she is doing. I think she’s just learnt it from those who came before, this air of superiority. But the real cruelty of youth is my craving for it. It’s the voice whispering insults in the back of my mind, twisting every wrinkle and every forgotten password into evidence I don’t belong.

I wrote the book on Mean Girls—literally—so I know of which I speak. I’ve been tortured by hot youngins since my high school days. But time has a way of turning the tables—what used to come from the hallway now comes from the mirror. The longer I live, the clearer it becomes that the mirror only mocks what it doesn’t understand: wisdom, calm, and a freedom youth can’t touch.

Age is the real secret youth never saw coming. It’s the superpower hidden in plain sight. While youth is scrambling for attention and approval, I’m learning how to live joyfully without it. While she fears the future, I’m making peace with it and finding a good deal of extra time hidden in the cracks. Hours I once thought were lost forever have now shown up as a gift to be found on the other side of school, work, amassing wealth, and all that exhausting stuff.

We often envy youth like it is the main act—pretty, loud, and enviable. But the real brilliance is in the encore. The longer the show goes, the more rich the performance gets. Age brings what youth can’t: wisdom, freedom, and acceptance.

Sure, youth can strut her quickness and energy, but age outperforms her in the long game of peace and joy. Youth may mock, but age done well sits in the moment and shows us how to live. And in the end, it’s the quiet strength of years that outshines the fleeting glitter of the first act.

Does youth often taunt you? Tell me how you deflect her taunts and embrace what youth will never understand. Please, cuz I’m still arguing with her from time to time.