I'm the Ancient Ingenue

I describe myself with the phrase “ancient ingenue”. It’s an interesting oxymoron between two opposing words that normally wouldn’t be used together. However, this is exactly how I see myself.

Ancient: I’m closer to being the ancient old crone than I am to being the innocent young girl. I don’t exactly think of myself as naive, but I’m definitely walking around with a hefty set of white privilege blinders that I’m trying to shed.

Ingenue: On the one hand, I’m a very educated person with a master’s degree. On paper, at least, I’m pretty smart. On the other hand, I had no clue what the real world is actually like for a lot of people. I live in the USA, so that’s my frame of reference and what I experience on a daily basis. We’ve got a lot of racism here.