The Convalescent Adolescent Trapped Inside an Adultescent Life

Psalm 27:1 – "The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?"

The truth is that I have come a long way from where I began. Violence, avoided emotions, and abandonment scarred my adolescence and young adulthood. I have learned to see the world through rose-colored glasses, as a glass-half-full perspective enables far more progress than a half-empty one can. Turning eighteen had no relevance to my adult hierarchy. I had lived on the streets and starved for a new life long before the legal age afforded me any privileges.

By fourteen, I was smoking cigarettes and marijuana and drinking alcohol, becoming numb to the life forced on me. Thankfully, I stopped such abusive behavior once my adult brain allowed me to weigh a moral compass against such indulgence. I defeated harmful vices, only to confront the truer monkey on my back, which came as no surprise: the factors I had hidden as an adolescent convalescent-in-progress required my whole heart to survive. An attainable self-love had existed inside me all along, but the modeled behaviors I followed came without a treasure map. I found that emotional wealth was the booty, enriching me with gems of sharp-witted thoughts and priceless advances as knowledge grew me like a beanstalk that reached new heights, and the sky’s the limit I aspired to. 

Years after I started a professional track, the immaturity of poor choices broke my back. I crumbled to the foundation that could have supported a tireless, worn-out soul. I worked physical roles that damaged my irreparable parts, and an adolescent mindset dragged me to the furthest points of egotistic defensiveness possible. I started life miles behind the starting line, with racers normalized, an unfair advantage in placement far ahead of my will to finish a race unequivocally not mine to win.

I hid behind sin’s façade, ever reliant on the art of mimicking personalities to fit into society. Thankfully, I read up on the psychological warfare in my emotionally disturbed psyche and became the type of writer who speaks to matters so uncommonly fathomed that few people find an interest in the involvement of a life gone wrong with mental problems to resolve. In the research I uncovered, such abusive indignation was common, and most humans hide it away in a broken vault, where its contents hold no value. I picked the lock, let the light shine inside, and became the escapee of a trapped adolescent; no longer burdened by my adultescence, I became conscious of saving lives like mine.

We are not that different, humanistically speaking, and the puzzling dynamics of being human come down to our ability to understand the emotional depths of whomever we become. I desire; therefore, I am who I am at the end of it all. I faced the challenge of becoming relevant in life, even if that importance comes solely from my own appreciation for not quitting before I could get to a podium to celebrate personal achievements. Life’s truest challenge is to accept what cannot be changed by persistence and hard work, but I pour my soul over the fire to extinguish the flames of a heated affair with those passions that make me a convalescent with the proper resolve.

Maybe I shouldn't have been born, but then the meaningful expressions that link me to the struggle wouldn't have reached you for support. Together, we are better with the truth as our guide, aiming for outcomes that outlive human harm.

Authoring my life was the one thing God intended for me to accomplish, as biblical sense has afforded me the consciousness of a God-fearing man.