Tortured Fifteen Year Old
There is something so genuine about life as a fifteen-year-old… The emotions you feel and the kind of dread that now seems silly but was once the end-all-be-all until years later, you look back and fondly laugh at the ways of your once tortured soul.
Recently, I was texting my brother and getting the dish on life as a sophomore boy. It’s nice to keep up with his world because it gives me a glimpse back into what life was like as a fifteen-year-old. I am reminded of the simplicity of life at that point in time, which feels so familiar yet has a vague air of foreignness after being away from it for so long. Yet once he tells me of the drama going on between his friends and the onslaught of homework he’s received, I am instantly drawn back to similar trivialities of my more naive days.
Now that I’ve moved out, I’ve become far more appreciative of my family. For the longest time, I could barely listen to my parents and stay patient with the most reasonable things they said or did. I finally managed to escape this rut of teenage angst that was too easily triggered by their existence. I knew that was a part of teenagehood, but I never knew how I would feel on the other side of the tunnel. These days, I find myself staying on the phone with my mom, sometimes in silence just to feel her presence around me a little longer.
I get to observe my younger brother as a wiser and older sister now. Watching him respond the same ways I did when everything my parents say pisses him off and all I can think is “yea I’ve been there bud.” It’s so funny to notice how he acts and speaks: I was just like that—but not anymore! I don’t even know when it happened, but I have thankfully matured past the inexplicable rage of being fifteen.
I was cleaning my Google Docs shortly after this revelation and came across a 5-page document titled “journal.” It must’ve been from before I started collecting physical journals, and sure enough, when I opened this doc, the top date read 11/29/20. These were ancient scrolls recovered from the cave of the deepest crevices of my mind…
Ramblings after ramblings of inconsequential problems that were the product of my “troubled” self. I thought I was so tortured and impossible to understand just like every person who has ever been fifteen. A part of me does feel sympathy for this version of myself because I remember how I struggled then both mentally and physically in the post-COVID state of the world. Now that I read back on these entries, it’s very strange to reflect on how much I’ve grown and overcome the depressions of early teenagehood. One of these entries describing the events of a dull Sunday goes as follows:
It was just about golden hour and the reflection of the sun bounced off a glass building which shone onto my bed, my fingers, and my book. There was a slight warmth in the light and it illuminated the pages of the book so the words looked like they floated off the paper. As I read, I was sipping my iced tea and I heard the AC radiating. Even in November it seemed warm in New York. It concerned me slightly because I knew it was a result of global warming. I went through one chapter, then another, and then one more but as I read, the sunlight slowly retracted from the pages, the bottom of my glass appeared, and the words of the book slowed down.
Anyways, then I went to skate and practice my ollies because it is the trick I am working on right now. I was listening to the great british baking show while I was skating but after some people came to the courtyard, I decided I would leave. Then I came home, washed my hands and ate a snack. I had strawberries and peanuts.
I used to love strawberries as a younger kid but then as I ate more, I began to hate the texture of them. The flavor is fine but the texture of the inside always made my skin crawl and made me want to throw up. I know that's dramatic but I really did hate the texture of strawberries. However, yesterday, I was going for a late night snack and I decided to have a few strawberries after not eating them for a long time. They were really good. And so today, I did the same and I had some strawberries. Nothing big but I just thought it was interesting how I have changed and somehow stayed the same.
I had put my stream of inner consciousness down so well all those years ago. This was genuinely the physical manifestation of my mind in freshman year. The random anxieties about the state of the world coupled with the acute detailing of my mundane routine. I grin at the mention of my old habits of skating and overly stylistic phrases. These entries teetered along the line of aggressively dark and nearly philosophical.
It was a sweet reminder to find this arbitrary piece of “literature” from the archives because I think: “If she only knew she would keep writing”. Sometimes, it’s difficult for me to consistently write (as you can probably deduce from the strange gaps of time between each new blog) because I’m unsure of what’s truly intriguing to rant about. I could continue my old freshman practices of droning on about my days, but now I feel compelled to dive further into writing with real substance. I’m still figuring out what that means.
I know this website is entirely for me and my few close friends who keep up. Still, after coming across these aged entries, it’s nice to realize I inadvertently pursued my interests before I even identified them and for the time being, I will continue to rely on my instincts to decide what’s worth typing on about.
