To My Youngers,
I am excitable. I'm an excitable person. Maybe not excitable like what that word actually means, but excitable in that I get excited about things. And when I get excited I get, well, quite excited. I use a lot of exclamation marks! I talk more loudly! My voice goes up in pitch (like a seventeen year old boy)!
It took me a while to see it, but for a few years there I was stifling that excitement. It leaked out for sure (how could it not?) but mostly when talking to students about their art (the times I get so excited I couldn't contain it if my life depended on it. Well, maybe only if my life depended on it...). In most other ways it just seemed to get buried beneath a bunch of worries and stress and grown-up stupidness. Then I made some changes. And with those changes came a resurgence of the excitement. Music and Movies and TV started to regain their magical powers, books became engrossing again. The sun shined a little brighter, the cloudy days seemed more purposeful. I rediscovered a laugh I had forgotten I had.
And why hide that? It doesn't mean I don't take things seriously, it doesn't mean that I see the world as a permanently happy place (once again being able to appreciate melancholia without getting sad might be my favourite thing about being excitable again!), it just means I'm not apologizing for being me. And thats a pretty good place to be.
After all, your insides are who you are, why do anything other than wear them proudly?
-E
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