The Secret To Being Young And Stupid

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Cut your friends hair. Do it around sunset, on a dock in Shawnigan Lake. Set up a chair on the edge and let the hair fall onto the lake like water spiders. Use dull scissors and your cell phone flash light. Say words like “texturize”, “frame” and “long-layers” because you know what you’re doing.

Have sex in your friend’s apartment. Do it while her roommate is out of town, in her roommate’s bed. You’ll wash the sheets. Your friend will be in her room having sex with someone too. Giggle when you can hear her through the butterfly thin walls. Lay beside the man in bed with you, correction: the boy. Let his weary fingertips scale up and down your leg as you pretend to sleep. Pretend he is your husband. Wake up in the morning with his arm around you and breathe in the velvet thick moisture of the room. Remember this feeling.

Take Adderall to study. Take so much that it feels like your pen can’t move fast enough for your thoughts. Stay at the library from 12pm to 12am and do an entire semester’s worth of readings in one day. Eat nothing but rice cakes and drink nothing but water.

Take Adderall to party.

Burn lasagna, overcook eggs, forget to add the baking powder to the chocolate cake you’re making. These are all mistakes that young people are allowed to make.

Take pictures of yourself and of your friends and of your memories. Hold on to every memory possible because you haven’t quite figured out which ones are worth keeping yet.

Be bold. Say what you mean and how you feel. Don’t be afraid to push the bitch that steps on your foot with her heels on the dance floor.

Bum a cigarette off a guy standing outside an art gallery downtown. Never actually smoke it. Tuck it behind your ear and walk away with the satisfaction that you just experienced the human’s ability to give to strangers.

Wear gum boots and thrift shop sweaters that look like your grandpa’s, because looking homeless is what’s considered “in”. Drink tea out of a jar and claim that you’re saving the environment.

Always talk to your cab driver. Ask them if they like their job. Ask them how much they make. Confess your deepest secret to them, then pay your fare and hop out.

Get drunk off Porch Crawler— a drink that you found on Wikipedia. Make a big tub of this vodka, gin and beer mix and drink it with friends until you all start talking about sex. Go out and dance on top of the bar…yes, on top of the bar. Look down at everyone’s heads bobbing beneath you, grab your best friend’s hand, pull her up there with you, and let the music pulse through your ears together. Remember this feeling too.

Compliment yourself. You are Einstein, you are mysterious, you will never die, and your metabolism will never catch up to you. Become obsessed with yourself.

Most importantly and above all, love. Love hard. Love until it hurts. Love everything, before you learn that not everything should be loved.