I finally and inexorably passed my thirty years. Many things have changed for me with the advent of adulthood, and I really did not see it coming.
First of all: I had to accept that youth was not eternal. With the first wrinkles, the first pieces of my diet I had to give up in order not to get unfit or unhealthy, the first clear signs that my body did not appreciate very rudimental ways of traveling and sleeping arrangements (i.e. sleeping on the floor with no mattress or on a very small couch) I soon had to surrender to the fact that the “legend” about aging was something that concerned also myself and was actually not a legend!
Childhood is not coming back, just to be clear
That’s when I realized that I had never truly believed that I would grow old! There was something inside of me that thought it could stay young forever. Yet here is the evidence of my misconception and with this certainty of aging the whole perspective on my life has suddenly changed. Childhood will not really come back and I understand it now for the first time. How crazy is that? Is it just me? Anyone out there who had this shocking realization of actually not being the youngest around anymore?
With this awareness also new fears have come. Not so much of death, but more of the difficulties of living in an aging physical body! Back problems, first signs of getting tired earlier than before (not mentioning not being able to deal with a hangover properly).
Politics is a dirty business
With the thirty years, and also with a little professional experience in international organizations and governmental ones, I got perhaps the greatest of disillusionment: politics.
Politics that really looks like a game where powerful people play tug-of-war. International relations, wars, discriminations that fill our days, which we had believed so full of humanism and civilization.
Well, at least in my generation, that grew up amid barefoot walks in support of peace, debates and social gatherings to create a common understanding of how a fair global society was supposed to develop.
My generation, that grew up with the ghost of Nazism, fascism, holocaust, the II World War, and that was fed with the idealism of brotherhood and European unity. That generation is now voting for anti-EU parties. Because what politics and media are portraying is just so disappointing,
Where do we go from here
And yet I see some people who are trying to bring humanity back to politics. But the structure, the legacy is too heavy to get rid of. And so together with the realization that I am not young anymore, but just “not old yet”, comes the realization that what I hoped was my contribution of making a change was just too weak compared to the stronger powers.
The great disillusionment: the false goodness of humanity.