eighteen till i die

I was seventeen years old the first time I started seriously writing. Before that I knew I had a lot to say, I just didn't want to say it to anyone. I used to love writing compositions in primary school, even though no matter how good it got the teacher never gave me any more than 28 out of 40 "so as not to make any of us vain and complacent". It worked, I read anything and everything I could, I got new words and I applied them and got better. Then I cleared high school and went to college to pass time before I was due to go to campus, and I began to write seriously. That year my work was published  for the first time ever. It was just a small mag read by a few people but still, it was a huge deal for me. I began to write in earnest, about everything. Back then (like 5 years ago) we had one of those off-white unbranded comps with 256MB RAMs and 60GB hard disk space. I was doing IT so everyone agreed that the comp should come to school with me. I sat in front of that machine every night till late, I wrote and wrote and wrote. Eighteen years' worth. I still have most of the stuff I wrote back then, I read them once in a long while, and it's like I don't even who that girl is. I went and became that person I used to passionately dislike -  the conformist. It took me such a short time too.
Theodore Roosevelt said once:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

Maybe that 'Eighteen till I die' guy had a point.Of all the years of my life, I miss being 18 the most. I only hope that Joy-18 is not lost to me for good, she was maybe the best version of me yet: passionately confused, stubborn, starry-eyed and naive. I hope to meet her someday soon. When I was younger I thought in black and white. It was either wrong, or it was right. Then I started to grow up, and all that gray set in. Problem is, now I see no black or white anymore, only a darker or lighter shade of gray. I can see the letter past Joy wrote to future Joy: Every song ends but that's no reason not to enjoy the music. Past Joy wanted to become an interior designer slash wedding planner slash fashion designer slash outside caterer, present Joy's a biochemist with great fashion sense. Playing it safe. Where did past Joy go, and who is this I have become? Yeah, I was a bit starry-eyed, and I believed in too many movies, but at what point did the cynicism become so deep-seated that it's my reflex response? If sixteen year old Joy met me, would she even know me? Am I wiser, or am I just more scared of risk?