Too Young to be old, too old to be young.

Things are getting weird.

There is a definite split starting to occur, or maybe I haven’t noticed until now, but this generation is starting to split up into their paths, and they get more divergent every year.

I am 29, own a house, have a career. Used to sleep on the ground 100 days a year, live out of a car, cook, bum, kayak. I thought drinking stopped being cool when I was 17. 

In the mountains, there are a few types of people, and they clash in their activities. To be young is to go out to bars, to be extroverted, to play sports and hang out. To be old is to buy a house, commute to work, have a career, to want a family and kids, to go to bed on time. 

Somehow, there is pressure to have an identity, to make sense of yourself, but you can’t. Each part of yourself is unique, and doesn’t necessarily fit some nice stereotype. I own a house(old), act like a kid(young), go to sleep early(old), am single(young), don’t party(old), play a lot(young).

A day with the Freeride team, during our one memorable storm, these boys range from 12-16 years old and throw some mighty backflips. 
 

Do we really have to make sense of this? Why is it so important that our life fit some narrative? What is our obsession with logical behavior relative to the folklore of our culture? We all feel like failures in some capacity in our lives, we all feel successful at other parts of our life, are proud of who we are.

We are extremely diverse beings, and spending time trying to understand ourselves should be time spent trying to accept ourselves and what we need to thrive, rather than beating ourselves up over what we are not. We can always strive to be better, but not at the cost of who we are now.

Are we waiting to grow? Is getting old inevitable? How do we measure success, and who measures it?