"Youth: Our Gains and Losses " by Kristin H

     The moment you’ve been waiting for: your name is called from onstage, you raise and
walk up the steps, cheering and yelling all around you. The administration that you barely
interacted with in the past four years will clasp your hand and give you a firm shake. You walk
down their line to receive the piece of paper that defines the grades you’ve earned and the work
you've done for the past 18 years of your life. Smile to the crowd, give a little wave, and the list
goes on. That’s the end. You sit in your seat and wait for it all to end only to take a few pictures
and shuffle off into the unknown of adulthood. That’s the end of your youth. 

     According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, youth is defined as “the period
between childhood and adult age,” a subsidiary definition being “the state or quality of being
young, especially as associated with vigor, freshness, or immaturity.” The coming of age films
we’ve grown up with would have you think that youth is the fun you have prior to college,
including wild parties, hook-ups, and rebelling against your parents. Hollywood lives vicariously
through these carefree cool kids just as we do because real life isn’t a 140 minute film that ends
on the perfect moment. What is in these unattainable characters that we do not have is their
endless youth.

     To put it simply, real life has consequences. In the past two years I’ve seen many former
friends of mine become these caricatures of youth: carefree, rebellious, and draining all the life
juice they can get from every possible moment. I’ve also seen their fear of missing out grow
exponentially, making sure to record every possibly enjoyable moment they can and save it to
their Snapchat memories. I’ve seen their nicotine addictions come to fruition, their anxiety grow
so large they find themselves crying on the floor of the J-building handicap stall, and the hope in
their eyes fade as they realize that the best years of their life are over.

     Yet, these have not been the best years. The youth we hold within us is carried
throughout our lives. Many of us didn’t have the opportunity to make use of the youth we did
have because we spent so much of this short time trying to grow up or deal with circumstances
that did not allow us to enjoy the little time we had. The Journal of Developmental & Behavioral
Pediatrics published a study in 2018 that revealed lifetime diagnoses of depression and anxiety in
adolescents ages 6-17 have increased over time, increasing from 5.4% in 2003 to 8% in 2007 and
to 8.4% in 2011–2012. I was one of these children suffering from both major depressive disorder
and anxiety, and for the majority of my life I felt that the time I had lost to suffering from these
two disorders could never be gained again and I viewed myself as a lost cause in the youth
department. 

     In the past when I have brought this thought process up to the therapists I’ve had, the
answer I received was more or less the same; Those that tell you that these are the best years of
your life are lying to you. In the grand scheme of things, these past 18 or so years have made up
a small fraction of your life. The mistakes you made, the suffering you endured, the inner turmoil that comes with being a teenager ​will ​ be a fleeting memory, if that. Your youth is not confined to
these few years and you will find that it will spread throughout your long life for quite some
time. The happiness you will find in knowing yourself, in learning about the world around you, and in the love you ​will ​ find will exponentially increase the youth you now have. There is no true loss of youth that you will find in your life. Even the most draining and insufferable
circumstances will lead to your growth in heart, spirit, empathy, and mind. There is no need to
worry about these being the greatest years of your life, those years are only starting now. 


     Works Cited

Bitsko, Rebecca H., et al. “Epidemiology and Impact of Health Care Provider–Diagnosed
Anxiety and Depression Among US Children.” Journal of Developmental & Behavioral
Pediatrics, vol. 39, no. 5, 24 Apr. 2018, pp. 395–403.,
doi:10.1097/dbp.0000000000000571.