MY YOUTH IS OURS EnglishVersion

The Driver

The vision I have for the internal rearview mirror is that of a very excited young teenager. Like all young teenagers.

But this young man had a different attitude from the other animated young teenagers.

Him and another young teenager took my car. They were in a gallery where other equally young teenagers came from... Animated.

Well... It's been at least 20 years since I acted like a lively young teenager for the simple fact of not being one. But I remember how it was enough to be with my companions or even newly-known young teenagers, who automatically got me excited.

Self-recognition among young animated teens is sometimes contagious, sometimes stressful, but never indifferent. It's the only phase of life that we feel open to be the best friends we've known for just two seconds. Just for knowing that that person possibly knows the same references as US and laughs at the same stupid jokes. After all, it all sounds stupid to those who are outside, for those who are not young/teen/excited.

Children are also easily entrosable. But at first they're suspicious. They feel threatened by the presence of another "small" sharing the attention of adults.

Kids show things in the environment. They don't say anything. They only analyze whether the other child is capable of being impressed in the same way. If the other have the same interest in understanding how things work, or even the best way to destroy something for the simple pleasure of seeing it in pieces. That's how kids discover the world. That's how children recognize each other.

"Let's go together and uncover mysteries."

Oh... But young teenagers are different. They talk a lot, because they already dominate this area. They are resourcefilled and their recognition is based on mocking what they think they already understand about the world. So that's the basic difference between the two phases.

When we became adults. We're a mixture of both.

We are suspicious of each other, for we have learned that there can exist evil in every hole of Swiss cheese called social life. But we talk, not with the same passion of young animated teenagers, we just hope that nothing or anyone will harm us or use something we say against us. Like growing old, creating an invisible courtroom around our hearts and trusting others.

Did I mention that these young teenagers are excited?

They could have sat each one at every window.

But the tall chose to stand in the middle and I do begin to understand why.

I'm not playing the cozy, but he sat in my field of vision to check the rear drive in this ferrenous transit of the capital.

Speaking of movement, they both accompany it from the window they share. Yes, "share", because the fact is that the tallest and the shortest came through the door on the same side, the sidewalk and not each one left to his window. CHAAI, I've already told you this...

But I think just commenting isn't being enough.

I'd need to take a picture of the scene.

The tall has all his attention focused on the things the other points out. So it is evident that sitting apart could not achieve this level of proximity and interaction, so mutually involved.

A year ago I started working as a driver, since the demand is fizzy. With a 16-year-old daughter, the improvement in income is being welcomed.

Speaking of my little princess...

My biggest concern while driving for most of the day is just knowing that she might be next to her first boyfriend. A guy I haven't liked since the moment I met him.

It may just be the typical fear we have, like adults. I just talked about it. Didn't I?

There's no specific reason for me to disapprove of the relationship. I have accepted the fact that my baby is not only mine, and yes she is a woman in transition since she became "young lady".

Our country suffers from the birth deficit of boys and this transforms the lives of single girls/women into a real battlefield, as my teenage crush, Pat Benatar, said:

"Love is a battlefield."

I don't want to be the one responsible for my daughter becoming an insecure woman in the future, if she has trouble getting married. I don't want her to "affront" me and make wrong decisions about that guy just because I forbid the relationship.

So I'm in what psychologists call a "parental paradox."

The kid has nothing I can point out as a suspicious. Doesn't smell like liquor, nor cigarette, not showing the underwear as it is fashion among boys. There is no bad school history or criminal record for indecorous conduct (inside or outside the school). Parents are well-seen in our community and regularly visit the temple.

Then why am I still not pleased to see him with my daughter?

At that moment my mind is divided into three rooms:

* The first focuses on the driving;

* The second, in my obsession to substantiate my disapproval to the lover of my lil' princess;

* And the third, in the duo (more specifically) on the tall boy sitting on the middle bench in the back of my car. The whole path without the slightest discomfort in sharing the same space...

The impression I have is that he prefers to stay as close as he can, so he hears the jokes the other one speaks more closely. And he's all laugher... And they do not stop to breathe, so much is the subject (understand: typically adolescent bullshit bastingly animated) that they have.

...

By leaving them in the destination, the young tall man and the short one (who has a child's face) wave to me and are greeted by a short woman in front of the house.

I follow my path to meet the new UBER request.

Now with two mental rooms rearranged and fixed to one conclusion:

What discontents me in my daughter's relationship is that, ever since, I've never seen the gentleman admire the princess with the same look that that boy has for the other:

Intensely tender.