inside the young mind

Entering my teenage years, when I turned thirteen, it felt different. Suddenly everything they said meant a lot to me; my choice in music, the colours I liked, the way I sat, the way my spectacles looked, my clothing, everything they said about my choices kind of started mattering. Then when I turned 14, I was even more into knowing what people thought about me, whether it was good, bad, or neutral, I took their opinions so that I could work on myself more, especially during my breakup era. My ex, who told me forever, and then vanished in two months, another ex after him who meant a lot to me told me he would marry me because I stayed when he did not, but also left the relationship after a year because of losing interest. 

Sometimes I look back and think, what was I thinking?

When all of them, my friends, my ex’s, my relatives, told me what I should have to gain attention from other people, to look superior, to look alluring. When I was with my ex, loving him like crazy, checking if he is fine, making mistakes but learning, knowing who he liked before me so that I can be like them. What was I thinking? I don’t get it.

I just sit and look at my phone, no notifications, swollen eyes, wishing he would text me, and we would get back and love more, but it was just hope, it felt like I was dreadful, because I could not become someone whom he could love forever.

This is what young teenagers go through, but why? As young souls we should not be taught how to become more attractive, after all, everyone is unique in their own ways. Then why are we told to change our clothing sense? What is wrong with blue dresses and yellow suits, what's wrong with two braids and a buzz cut? What is wrong with liking K-POP or J-POP or Punjabi music? What's wrong with sitting with legs spread as a woman? What is wrong if a man likes pink or yellow or green? Why cannot people have their own choices and point of views?

Society made us like this, followed by social media, where reels like “we don't gossip, we judge”, “judging is just our thing”, are shared on a large scale. Young children are bullied on the basis of their profile pic, their stories, or notes. Discrimination is not in our moral values right?

This discrimination, at such a sensitive age, makes them stuck to their past, and then those unique, with keen questions and curiosity and happiness just become cold and dull and the one who is never excited. Often hiding their choices and interests so that they don't get judged.

A great example of this situation is Kazama from the cartoon Shin-Chan. Kazama liked Moyepe (a female TV actor) and Action Kamen (a superhero actor) and followed both of them till the end, but never wanted his friends to know because he feared that his mature image would be destroyed, and he was just five years old. 

Parents play their role too, whenever see other kids doing great at something and getting medals, they don't understand what a child goes through when they compare, according to them because their parents did the same, so they do it, constantly nagging a child just to be perfect in a world where people just hide their imperfections and no one is ever perfect.

All this just goes on day by day, night by night. My way of dealing with all this when I was 13-14 was just to simply cry at night, but those tears were no use, it just made my eyes dry and my health worse. Sitting alone on the bed developing my overthinking skills, it was all just a lesson, to be careful next time, to build walls around my heart, but that was when I realised that hurting others the way someone hurt me is not just my thing, accepting your sensitive part should be your priority, because it’s you at the end who can treat you the way you want. Tam Kaur said in one of her books ‘BUY YOURSELF THE DAMN FLOWERS’ - judgements come from the people who are so hyper-aware of things they don’t like about themselves to everyone they come across to see how they measure up. They can’t help it - and that's the truth. So I just started thinking about myself more than others.

It was hard at first to forget my love that was going to be the whole story of my book of life, but slowly I just took myself more seriously. Sometimes he comes into my mind, his promises speak to me, but now is the time to change the future. The past was just a part of life that has passed away, and is never going to change or come back.

Written by Saiyam Thakur
Writer

Saiyam is a 10th grader from India wanting to study commerce further and yearns for a career in journalism. She loves to take part in writing competitions, MUNs and literature related activities.

In her free time she studies, reads, designs on Canva, and watches something romantic or funny to chill out.