I recently stumbled across a quote from Pablo Picasso that stopped me mid-scroll.

“It takes a long time to become young.”

And I thought that’s supremely accurate.

Because I feel younger now than I did when I was actually young.

When I was younger, I was busy being careful. Busy being appropriate. Busy being impressive. Busy trying to read rooms instead of inhabit them.

Now?

Now I laugh more. Not polite laughter. Not social laughter. Real laughter. The kind that arrives from your diaphragm like it’s been waiting years for clearance.

I always giggled. But now it’s heartier. Now I skip sometimes.
Yes, skip. In hallways. Public ones. With witnesses.

Now I dance while doing mundane things, like I’ve accidentally wandered into a montage in a coming-of-age film that never existed.

And coats. Let’s talk about coats.

I buy fun coats now. Dramatic coats. Coats that have opinions. Coats that suggest I might, at any moment, board a train to somewhere impractical or deliver a devastatingly witty line in a café.

Younger me would have called them “too much.”

Older me calls them “correct.”

I think what Picasso meant is that youth isn’t actually about age. It’s about access. Access to playfulness, spontaneity, curiosity, and silliness. All the things we quietly train ourselves out of in the name of maturity.

But here’s the twist no one tells you. As you age, if you’re lucky, you circle back.

Because by then, you know yourself better. You know what actually delights you. You know which rooms deserve your energy and which ones don’t. You stop trying to be universally liked and start enjoying being specifically you.

And with that comes something unexpected in that mirth gets easier.

You laugh faster. You recover quicker. You recognize absurdity sooner.

You also accumulate stories that serve as social armor made of lived experience. Stories that sharpen your wit, feed your comebacks, and remind you that most things are survivable and many things are secretly funny.

Youth, it turns out, isn’t something we lose.

It’s something we earn back.

Piece by piece. Giggle by giggle.
Dance step by hallway dance step.

It takes a long time to become young.

But when you finally get there, you realize the younger version of you was mostly just trying to get permission to be the person you are now.

And honestly?

I plan to get even younger from here.