It might do us some good

In silence we hear our own voices, in solitude we find company with our thoughts and in darkness we reminisce about our past. Some of us have the ability to lightly cover the past with a dusting of sugar and some of us remember the past just as it was. Those of you who remember the past just as it was, this isn't for you.

I fall into the former group. My past, however inaccurately I remember it, is and always will be fabulous. I left home two weeks after turning eighteen. From country to country, encounter to encounter, incident to incident, I have moved myself, packed my own bags and had adventure after adventure. Each story unique and now told with a twist of humour, a bit of suspense and lots of sound effects.

There have been moments in time, especially as a teenager, where I felt that my world would end. I recall crying in my bedroom over things that now could only be treated as trivial and petty. Back then, the trials and tribulations of being a teenager - all while having your very own music soundtrack and songs with lyrics that rocked your world and made you cry even more - seemed insurmountable. It was tough being a teenager, wasn't it?

I recall, now in a very comical fashion, being angry and upset, easily offended and somewhat impulsive. More than anything, I remember being selfish. There was no way I could see beyond my own life at that time, and it will do me a great deal of good to remember this when I have a teenager of my own. We forget that we were once teenagers too, we sugar coat everything and make it seem as though we coasted through life - all because when we are older we dismiss our old selves as immature, petulant and childish. We were kids and kids understand nothing. Suddenly as adults we "wake up", realise life is apparently harder and we dismiss all those things that we once held as important; all those things we fought for as teenagers.

At eighteen my great escape revealed itself. Suddenly finding myself in situations that were more "difficult". The inverted commas are there because difficulties in life are purely subjective. There is no objective scale for assessing the impact of hardships on ourselves. Again, it would do me good to remember that when I trivialise someone else's hardship, wouldn't it? The early adult years proved to be so taxing, difficult and so dark. From relationships to studies, from catching buses in dangerous cities to learning how to be a decent cook, the early adult years seemed so much more difficult. Everything was so much more complicated. It made me laugh at my teenage years.

Each time I laughed at my teenage years, I was dusting icing sugar over my past. Then came the horrible late twenties. Suddenly all the mountains I overcame in my early twenties looked like little molehills. More sugar over all the things in my past that were once ground shaking, earth moving, heart breaking. Everything became more complex, more difficult and all of a sudden, our teenage and early adult years are remembered fondly as "party years", "the carefree times", "things were so much easier back then".

Now in my thirtieth year of life, I would like to think that I am at least in a position to tell someone younger that it gets better. I know that I still know nothing, I know that my life experiences may seem paler than others', I know that life has so much more to throw at me, I know that there is so much more for me to learn. I know one thing; that I will continue to sugar coat my past, as will many of us.

The reason I am writing about this delicious sugar coat is not to incite horrible responses about losing touch with reality nor is it to trivialise other people's hardships or compare theirs to mine. I am writing about the sugar coat we cover our past in because there is one thing we cannot forget or dismiss: We were so much stronger when we were young. Hardships hit you now and they hit you harder the older you get, they effect you so much more than when you were younger. So each time we overcome these new "adult" hardships, we assume and think we have become stronger. When in fact, it isn't our strength that has changed so much, it is the effect each hardship has that is more potent. In return we celebrate the triumph over each hardship in a grander way by telling ourselves that we are so much stronger, how surprised we are that we had that strength.

It would do me a great deal of good to look back at life and applaud little me, wouldn't it? I was so strong, so brave, so naive and innocent that I took each hardship on, fighting brazenly and not licking my wounds for quite as long as I do now. Things were tough when we were younger, we just didn't dwell on them for as long, we didn't have time to launch massive battles as we do now that we are older. There was a lot less recognition of our accomplishments when we were younger. We just got on with it. Now that we are older, we act as if our "real" adult problems are so much worse than our younger, "less complex" problems.

Take the time to listen to a young person today. They have so many more battles flying at them, fast and hard. They too will sugar coat it later on, but right now there is a young person somewhere listening to a sad song and hurting, feeling as though their world is about to come to a grinding halt. We don't understand them even though we were so much like them. That's not fair, now is it? Recognise and acknowledge the problems of someone younger than you today. They are fighting far more battles than you are, and if they aren't you still can't compare the impact of the hardships they are experiencing to your past. Cry a little bit for "younger" you today if you must.

Yes, life was so much simpler when we were younger, but don't forget that it seems simpler because you have consciously sugar coated it. It was pretty damn difficult when you were experiencing it back in the past. Look back and say, "Gosh, how did I even survive that?" Applaud yourself. Applaud someone younger than you today. It would do you good. It might do us all some good.