If my younger self were to talk to me and ask me what the one thing is that I still struggle with now, I'd tell them it's the feeling of not being allowed to do things.

Even now, as an adult, and all the agency that comes with that, some things still feel forbidden.

I'll give an example that happened just a few minutes ago - the food truck that drives around here because we have construction going on at the moment honked its horn. And I asked my roommate if it's actually a food truck or if it's a catering truck.

He responds that he's passed by where it sets up on his runs, and it's *definitely* a food truck. And then he asked what gave me the impression it wasn't.

I responded "I dunno, I've kinda wanted to go try to purchase something, but I don't feel like I'm allowed to."

This was clearly perplexing to him, and he had to run off to do something so I didn't get to expand on that further, so I'm doing it here. Because that's what Twitter is for, right? ...Right?

So anyway, there's a couple reasons I feel like I'm "not allowed":

The first being that I feel like the truck is kind of... Only there for the construction workers. I feel like, even if it is technically "legal" for me to go purchase from it - in fact, the owners might encourage it! - I feel like it's "in bad form" for me to do that.

What if they only have enough stock to make a limited amount of food? Then I'm basically stealing from the hungry construction workers! (Ignoring the fact that I, too, would be paying for the product and it is, technically, first come, first served.)

The second reason is I feel like if they wanted the business of the people living here, there'd be some manner of advertising aside from the driving about and honking. Flyers or something. "Come buy food from us!" they would say, subliminally or otherwise.

...Come to think of it, that's probably what the horn is for. Hmmm.

Anyway, the point I'm really trying to make with this thread is that I, and probably other people also, am always justifying my way out of doing things. I always invent reasons and ways I'm not allowed to do things - some of which are, admittedly, perfectly legitimate.