Adulting advice: if you think you can’t do a thing because you tried it as a child or teenager and you sucked really badly: try it again.
You may not notice it, but as an adult you continue gaining motor skills, insight, problem solving skills and above all patience and resilience in the face of failure. Also puberty can be a nightmare. For some of us it’s just harder to do things when we’re full of insecurities, low impulse control and focus, heightened emotions, etc. A thing that was hard for 15 year old you might not be hard for 25 or 35 or 45 years old you.
I thought I was the absolute worst at sowing because I tried to learn it in my teenage years and failed spectacularly at the most basic tasks. Turns out I just didn’t have the patience and focus for it yet. I tried it again recently and it didn’t take long at all to learn how to make my own clothes. (And oh my, being able to make any outfit I want in any fabric is a queer superpower.)
It really sucks that we’re told quite early in life what our talents are and we end up assuming that there are some things we’re just not good at, when the truth is that learning as an adult is just completely different from learning as a child.
Oh man, since I’ve been like… 32+ ? So many things have gotten easier.
It’s not something anyone tells you. In fact, I think with our youth-obsessed culture, there’s a tendency to think that you’re going to peak young. Generally, this just isn’t true.
A lot of the improvement feels, like the OP says, kind of effortless. It’s me going back to cooking after not cooking for six years and suddenly, oops I’m pretty damn good at it. Why? I wasn’t cooking in the meantime, I wasn’t practicing. (I didn’t even have a stove.)
But other mental qualities were developing that make everything easier. My executive function, decision-making, motor skills, etc. are all better than they were, through completing thousands of other tasks. I can think, know, and focus better.
There’s a huge element of this, also, which is enabled by emotional capacity and maturity, which is even harder to describe. It’s easier for me to do things like tell the truth because I can actually understand the truth of how I feel and I am more likely to have the confidence to say it. It’s easier to make the right decisions, to weigh all the factors. Especially for me since I was really not consistently good at this in my teens and 20s (I was possibly more impulsive and risk-seeking than many people, but that just makes the contrast more apparent.)
The other thing to consider is that when you are a teen/child, you’re being taught things often in a very specific way that’s been determined by someone else. My dad, for example, wanted me to understand how engines worked, so he explained them to me while we both looked under the hood of his various cars or trucks. I learned absolutely zero things by doing this.
When I was 21, I decided I wanted to know, so I learned how engines worked from an educational website with animations and quizzes. And of course, I was able to learn it. It’s not that complicated. I was never unable to learn it, I was just not able to learn it that way.
YES.
And for the record: I don’t wanna shit on teens and young adults here or to discourage teens from trying complicated things. Everyone is different and not every teen is as much of a distracted and easily discouraged mess as I was. And as you say: a lot of why things are often harder for teens is because they’re not given the space to choose what they want to learn and how they want to learn.
Also, everyone at every age is allowed to make tons of bad decisions and mistakes and fail at tons of things or do things they enjoy without ever becoming good at it.
Writer: So They Spooned All Night And The Brooding One Allowed Themselves To Feel Vulnerable For The First Time In Years And The Chirpy One Got Some Quality Snuggles
Fluff fans: *GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
Alternatively:
There was only one bed and so they lay there together, only inches apart physically but it may as well have been miles for neither could muster the courage to tell the other the true depth of their feelings and so they lay there sleepless in their mutual pining
There was only one bed. A carried B to it and gently eased them down. They were both badly injured but B’s conditions were much worse and A wouldn’t rest until they knew B was going to be alright. So A sat down next to B and brushed their hair back, holding their hand as B shivered through the night, their only comfort A’s presence by their side.
How many different ways can you write this one trope.
There was only one bed, but instead of making a big fuss, the tired pair went the fuck to sleep and got a full 8 hours.
My sleep deprived ass:
OH YEAH THAT’S THE GOOD STUFF
😹😹😹
There was only one bed. This is normal. They’ve been married for a decade and have a small child. The child has climbed in bed to snuggle with them because thunder is scary. They have their baby curled between them and they share soft, warm smiles over his sleepy head as he snores little kid snores.
Me, who just wants domestic curtains found family fic:
There was only one bed, the two characters argued and bickered begging for them not to have to share it, but they somehow are here still. They agree that there both going to pick a side and stay on it. This was going fine until in the middle of the night A woke up screaming and crying, B gets them to calm down and they end up falling asleep next to each other feeling safe
There was only one bed. A noticed B’s exhaustion and lifted them easily. “You don’t have to carry me like a child,” B noted, despite being clearly pleased by how matters were progressing. “I think we both know that’s not true,” A replied with a grin. The bed was warm, inviting, and yet something was missing. “Is this a private party, or can just anyone join,” C called from the doorway, clad only in their underwear and a smile. “Only if it’s you!” A and B replied in unison as they drew the covers back.
My OT3-loving ass:
There was only one bed.
It turned out to be a defective Murphy bed and it trapped them in the wall.
Crack fic fans:
This entire thread is delightful
There was only one bed.
There had only ever needed to be one, for they had shared everything since the day they said “I do.”
It fit the two perfectly, with a little extra room should they receive a tiny night time guest, with soft pillows and warm blankets and a mattress that was just right.
