I know almost nothing about the youth. I have zero Gen Z peers, and most millennials younger than me (all of them except the first batch) are people that I can’t stand on a fundamental level. But when I see young couples, out and about arms around each other, or sitting at cute tables with eyes locked, it fills me with such surprising and indescribable joy.
While I know the true face of reality to be horrific and terrifying, there are small pockets of the overall human experience in which American Beauty gets it right- there are things of almost indescribable beauty everywhere, at the same time, all around us.
I look at these kids full of energy, optimism, and the thrill of discovery- taking all of it out on one another behind closed doors in fits of heat and passion- and I feel called back, in my mind, to when that place was inhabited by my generation, before most of these current kids were even glints in their parents eyes.
I feel called back to the back seats of cars, full of peers, rocketing through the night- through youth entirely- with a fresh understanding of the world that our elders wouldn’t understand, and with hopes and dreams built on that understanding, and each other.
Sure, like they will someday, I grew to realize my “grip” on the world was an illusion and any hopes and dreams anyone has are likely to be interrupted by the unexpected and the unknowable, but at the time it really doesn’t matter.
When I see these kids, I genuinely love them. The older I get the more I realize that love is not actually a thing that binds people. What a lot of people call love- “completing” someone, or “fitting together” with someone, is something else. Something also important that keeps the world moving, something transactional, but not Love.
Love is something that is only ever given, and given freely. It needs nothing in return. Because genuine love doesn’t depart from us and reside in other people. It leaves us, flows through others, and returns again- because the first and only person that matters, when it comes to who we love, is ourselves.
Until you’re able to love yourself, Truly, you won’t be able to love others. We were always told this, but until recently, it never actually made sense to me. Until now. And it is one thousand percent true.
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