the youth is wasted on the young (?)

slow surrender to growing up

i’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately and every time i do, i find myself going in loops. not spirals, not free-falls, just soft circles of thought that i can't seem to break out of. it doesn’t even feel like a conclusion i'm chasing anymore, just a kind of comfort in the circling itself. like maybe if i keep walking the perimeter long enough, it’ll start to feel like home.

part of the reason it hits so strangely is because i don't fully understand what it's supposed to mean. like, not really. i know the textbook interpretation. the idea that youth is this golden phase in our lives, rich with energy, curiosity, and time and that we’re too naïve to know what to do with it when we’re in it. it’s only when we’re older, when our bodies slow down and time starts to mean something different, that we look back and go, “oh.”

but when i hold it up against my own memories, it becomes harder to agree so easily. like, yes, of course i did things that were dumb, reckless, and laughably avoidable but isn’t that the point? that we’re supposed to mess up while the stakes are still lower? that we jump fences, lie to our parents, cry at 3am, fall in love too hard too fast, fail a few tests, forgive too easily, party too much because we can?

i don't see myself jumping the uni hostel fence again. not because i’m incapable of climbing, but because the idea just doesn’t make sense anymore. it sounds stupid now. impractical. not worth the effort. but back then, it felt like the only thing that made sense. sneaking out at midnight to get picked up by a bunch of friends with no real plan, just vibes and a vague destination: usually a beach but sometimes a terrace where we’d sit around a speaker playing music off a dying phone, pretending not to be tired. forcing ourselves to stay up till 7am just so the hostel gates would open and we could slip back in unnoticed, shoes in hand, eyeliner smudged, stories half-whispered. i think about that version of myself, the one who found joy in exhaustion and romance in inconvenience. and i wonder if she would like who i’ve become.

because now, i find myself choosing comfort over chaos. plans need purpose. nights need structure. fun needs to be scheduled. and while there’s a part of me that enjoys this new life: this stability, this earned slowness; there’s also a part that misses being careless. not in a self-destructive way. just in a way that didn’t require overthinking every outcome before doing the thing.

there’s this scene from one of the old shows i used to binge where someone says something like “the worst part is knowing it’s the last time, even if you don’t realise it in the moment.” and that’s what stings the most when i think of youth. not that i didn’t live it well. not that i wasted it. but that i didn’t know when it was ending. that there wasn’t some announcement or curtain call. just one day, i stopped taking risks for no reason. stopped writing love letters i’d never send. stopped staying up all night just to feel something. it didn’t end loudly. it just... slowed down.

i think “youth is wasted on the young” only makes sense if you believe that regret is the only lens through which to view growing up. and i don’t know if i do. i have regrets, yes. i regret the things i didn’t say. the apologies i never gave. the people i let go without understanding why. but i also have an odd kind of gratitude for all the versions of myself that got me here. even the cringe ones. especially the cringe ones. because they were the most alive.

sometimes, late at night, i scroll through old photos. hostel birthday parties. study groups that turned into gossip sessions. badly rolled joints on badly made balconies. poetry nights in cafés with flickering tube lights. i look at those faces: young, awkward, hopeful and i don’t think they wasted their youth. i think they were doing their best with what they had.

maybe the quote should be reworded:

youth is misunderstood by the young, and mourned by the old, and that’s just the way it’s always been.

it’s not about wasting anything. maybe it’s about how time changes the way we understand value. when i was 18, a successful night meant sneaking back into my room without getting caught. today, it means falling asleep without anxiety. both feel like victories. just different ones.

i still chase that feeling sometimes. not the recklessness, but the magic. the weightlessness of doing something simply because it feels right. i try to let myself be spontaneous. i book trips without plans. i walk aimlessly with music in my ears. i text old friends just to say i miss them. and when those moments land right, i catch a glimpse of that girl again: the one on the beach at 5am, swearing she’s not cold even though she’s shivering, laughing so hard she can’t breathe.

and god, if that’s what youth was, then i don’t think i wasted it. i think i lived it the only way i knew how: too loud, too much, too fast. but always fully.

now, i live slower. quieter. but not emptier.

i take better care of myself now. i drink water. i journal. i buy expensive sunscreen. i forgive myself quicker. i say no more often. i romanticise different things, a clean kitchen, a good therapy session, a day without overthinking. i’m not always happy. but i’m always trying. and maybe that’s the new kind of youth: one where we begin again, not with fireworks, but with intention.

i still think about the quote. it still loops in my head. especially on quiet days when i’m waiting at a red light.

youth is wasted on the young. maybe.

but maybe that’s also the point. maybe it’s not meant to be used wisely. maybe it’s just meant to be used.

and i did. i used it all. i wore it out.

to the next wild, reckless version of me who’ll show up in some other form. maybe when i’m 30, looking back at who i am now and wondering, “did she know how golden this was?”

probably not.

but that’s okay. that’s just how the loop goes.