I Was Born An Adult

Reading: Science Just Confirmed It: You're Not an Adult Until 32 by Sriram Yaladandi

https://medium.com/pen-with-paper/science-just-confirmed-it-youre-not-an-adult-until-32-f37adbb828db

I had to double-check in shock. Are these people insane?

Adolescence Lasts Until Age 32, According to a Study that Reveals 4 Key 'Turning Points' in Brain Aging.

After the age of 9, the brain enters adolescence, which lasts until the early 30s.

https://people.com/adulthood-starts-32-study-turning-points-brain-ageing-11856435

Science isn't always right.

Thanks to poverty's hell, pain, hopelessness, hunger, fear, and more, I was born an adult. Sorry, I had an impatient life and had to grow up fast, making adult decisions without knowledge, wisdom, understanding of life, and living before I was twelve years old. Yes, many children in my world had to grow up fast and make adult decisions at the speed of light.

Life didn't give me a choice to be weak or stupid. I didn't have the time either. My world was cruel and unforgiving, and to survive, most of us had to be both, at a cost to our lives, selves, and sanity.

I was aware of the consequences of every stupid thing I did, not only from my pain, but also from the pain of everyone around me very early. I see life unfold through the actions, choices, and decisions of family, neighbors, friends, foes, and people I read about since I was a child. Yes, I have been reading the newspapers since I was about eight or nine years old. I read a lot too.

As someone who understands life and hates pain, their mistakes became my lessons and reasons to be sensible and learn from their mistakes. I don't like pain, as I have seen its destruction in human lives and how they live. I find ways to keep pain away. Yes, it comes at a cost, but I am willing to pay whatever the cost to stop pain from destroying my life.

Yes, life is never without pain, but unnecessary pain, I can do without. I am sitting on many of the decisions I made in my teens without regret, as they have helped my life go as it should. I can look back at my life without regrets because I did everything for good reasons and learned from what went wrong.

Puberty side-stepped me; I didn't have the time to go through it. I was busy fighting life as an adult at 14. My mistakes would be my hell. Mine alone, then. When I become a mother, my children and anyone relying on me will share it. Life showed me how and why never to share pain. If I do, it stays.

Does anyone have any idea how painful it is for many children when their parents forget their responsibilities?

The trauma sometimes never leaves.

Even without knowledge and enough experience, I still made good decisions. I can't explain how, but I did. I made them with the wisdom of an adult who has endured it all. I can live with and on them because they harm no one.

Not all of us reached adulthood at 32. Some of us were born with the knowledge and wisdom of an adult.

By the time many of us reached 32, we had already lived several lives. I have lived many lives before I turned 21. That gave me the power to make sensible decisions of someone older, wiser, and stronger.

Science isn't always right. Our lives, how we live them, and the opportunities and resources at our disposal aid in our growing up faster than life says.

I was born an adult.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.