Adolescence + The real story

via Fancy

“Adolescence is best enjoyed without self-consciousness, but self-consciousness, unfortunately, is its leading symptom. Even when something important happens to you, even when your heart’s getting crushed or exalted, even when you’re absorbed in building the foundations of a personality, there comes these moments when you’re aware that what’s happening is not the real story. Unless you actually die, the real story is still ahead of you. This alone, this cruel mixture of consciousness and irrelevance, this built-in hollowness, is enough to account for how pissed off you are.”
― Jonathan Franzen, The Discomfort Zone  (via Slaughterhouse90210)

Why do we never seem to finish growing up? Even though my teen years are (unfortunately) long behind me, it sometimes feels like life has yet to start.