This summer, I became very closely acquainted with a state of being of which I had never experienced before: panic.
Okay, fine. Let’s backtrack. Obviously, I had experienced some forms of panic before. The kind when you get to school and realize you left your homework on your kitchen table, or when you forget the entire speech that you had rehearsed for your Easter program at church. I had experienced anxiety before, as well as fear, and I had also experienced a certain level of terror. But never before had I felt such an acute sense of dismay as I had for those three days over the summer.
You know everything that happened this summer, but let me give you a rundown anyways: 1) Covid was rampant and everyone was still masking as if their lives depended on it (because they did), 2) Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted after shooting three black men--two, fatally--during a protest in Wisconsin, and 3) the Supreme Court had just overturned Roe v. Wade, a court case ensuring abortion rights for women in every state in America. I made posts ranting about it, consumed all of the Twitter content and New York Times articles that I could, kept up with WGN News, and talked to everyone who would listen to me about them.
You know everything that happened this summer, but let me give you a rundown anyways: 1) Covid was rampant and everyone was still masking as if their lives depended on it (because they did), 2) Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted after shooting three black men--two, fatally--during a protest in Wisconsin, and 3) the Supreme Court had just overturned Roe v. Wade, a court case ensuring abortion rights for women in every state in America. I made posts ranting about it, consumed all of the Twitter content and New York Times articles that I could, kept up with WGN News, and talked to everyone who would listen to me about them.
Yet, honestly, none of those things really struck me.
I was pissed about them, yes; I was angry-- outraged, even.
But for me? The straw that broke the camel’s back was a TikTok.
I was pissed about them, yes; I was angry-- outraged, even.
But for me? The straw that broke the camel’s back was a TikTok.
My brother told me about it. A girl did a TikTok about a song that sampled another song that used tapes recorded during a racist massacre. Decades ago. But somehow, learning about this event, this traumatic, evil event, sent me into a deep, overwhelming panic for days. I slept in my mom’s room because I could only fall asleep with the background noise of the TV. I could barely speak when prompted, and I felt miserable for days. Days. Even writing about it now still puts me on edge.
What sparked this? My best guess is the nerves associated with the idea that the next generation is responsible for “fixing” the world. Case in point: every time something terrible happens in the world, the people you most often see at the forefront to repair the damage done are younger people.
Who’s gonna fix global warming? Who’s gonna maintain the two-party system decades into the future? Who’s gonna make sure that gas prices go down? Or that black people aren’t living in constant danger, or that the snowflakes don’t take away all the guns, damnit!
Young people. Young people are the ones who are supposed to carry on legacies, maintain traditions, and uphold society for as long as it takes for them to raise a new generation to unload their burdens onto. So when I look at all the stuff going on now, and when I think about all the atrocities of a past that really isn’t that far away at all--when I think about how we could be regressing back to that? It’s devastating. It’s numbing. It’s a cold, icy gallon of dread, poured directly onto my person.
What sparked this? My best guess is the nerves associated with the idea that the next generation is responsible for “fixing” the world. Case in point: every time something terrible happens in the world, the people you most often see at the forefront to repair the damage done are younger people.
Who’s gonna fix global warming? Who’s gonna maintain the two-party system decades into the future? Who’s gonna make sure that gas prices go down? Or that black people aren’t living in constant danger, or that the snowflakes don’t take away all the guns, damnit!
Young people. Young people are the ones who are supposed to carry on legacies, maintain traditions, and uphold society for as long as it takes for them to raise a new generation to unload their burdens onto. So when I look at all the stuff going on now, and when I think about all the atrocities of a past that really isn’t that far away at all--when I think about how we could be regressing back to that? It’s devastating. It’s numbing. It’s a cold, icy gallon of dread, poured directly onto my person.
And then, I took a walk.
I went to the park with my friend, maskless because we were outside, and we ate snacks and sandwiches, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t be a very fun person to hang out with outside of school. I was nervous about something that someone my age should actually be nervous about.
I talked about the past few days with her, and then we had a swinging competition until we both realized that we were not our 5-year-old selves anymore and that we would vomit if we kept going. I bought a snowball from two girls sitting under a tent on the sidewalk. We just relaxed. And later, I realized that it had helped my mood tremendously.
Even later than that, I realized that I could not spend the entirety of my adolescence worrying about problems caused by 70-year-old white men that would affect me ten years later, no matter how much I wanted to. Because the thing is, I’m 16, and by the time this article comes out, I’ll be twenty-four hours away from turning 17, which means that I’ll have a full year left of just being a kid, and then even more time to figure out how to be an adult.
I went to the park with my friend, maskless because we were outside, and we ate snacks and sandwiches, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t be a very fun person to hang out with outside of school. I was nervous about something that someone my age should actually be nervous about.
I talked about the past few days with her, and then we had a swinging competition until we both realized that we were not our 5-year-old selves anymore and that we would vomit if we kept going. I bought a snowball from two girls sitting under a tent on the sidewalk. We just relaxed. And later, I realized that it had helped my mood tremendously.
Even later than that, I realized that I could not spend the entirety of my adolescence worrying about problems caused by 70-year-old white men that would affect me ten years later, no matter how much I wanted to. Because the thing is, I’m 16, and by the time this article comes out, I’ll be twenty-four hours away from turning 17, which means that I’ll have a full year left of just being a kid, and then even more time to figure out how to be an adult.
I would love to be a social justice warrior, willing to put my life on the line for a cause that I believe in. But would that be fair to me, or any of us? Would that be fair to the teenagers after us if we forced them to do as we do now? The truth is, taking time to worry about ourselves and our own wellbeing, our family, our friends, our budding relationships, and the millions of other things that come with being a teenager, is not selfish. It’s not ignorant or even an issue at all.
Taking time out for yourself is a necessity if you want to be more than just “functioning.” Personally, and I hope I speak for everyone reading this, I want to be happy, flourishing, and excited for the things to come. Yes, there is a climate crisis going on, and yes, we are still in the thick of fighting for civil rights for black people in America, but if I fight for cause after cause, pouring more and more of myself into different cups, how much will be left for me? How much will be left for me to achieve my dreams and enjoy my existence while it lasts? Is there nothing more to life but surviving storms and enduring the anxiety of impending ones? Are we truly going to be reduced to nothing but our parents’ “future”?
Taking time out for yourself is a necessity if you want to be more than just “functioning.” Personally, and I hope I speak for everyone reading this, I want to be happy, flourishing, and excited for the things to come. Yes, there is a climate crisis going on, and yes, we are still in the thick of fighting for civil rights for black people in America, but if I fight for cause after cause, pouring more and more of myself into different cups, how much will be left for me? How much will be left for me to achieve my dreams and enjoy my existence while it lasts? Is there nothing more to life but surviving storms and enduring the anxiety of impending ones? Are we truly going to be reduced to nothing but our parents’ “future”?
The next generation, our generation, is not a fix-all for every mistake made by the “future” of the past, nor the “future” before them, or even the “future” before that “future”. In fact, we owe it to ourselves to not become so caught up in fixing their mistakes that we forget to live.
Trinity Jones
