Growing up is a funny thing. When I was young, I couldn’t wait to be an adult and enjoy everything that goes with being an adult. I was excited by the idea of freedom and money that I could do what I wanted when I wanted. It’s actually rather amusing when you think about who you took orders from as a child, and now as an adult I am beholden to my parents, still. Also my boss, the tax man, the mortgage company, the overzealous checkout assistant and a whole other heap of people.
I feel my age. I have long been a victim of doing far too much far too young and as such, at the tender age of 25 I feel as though I have lived far more. I moved out and got a mortgage at 19, and since then my life has been very different. Of course I do have money, and nice things with that money, seeing as I type this on my brand spanking new laptop, listening to my very fancy and very new MP3 player. But still. I started working full time in what has now become my career when I was 17, so I had a couple of years of blessed freedom from cash restraint until I kissed that all goodbye to see a huge chunk of my wages disappear every month into the swirling vortex of doom that is my mortgage. I am not saying I regret my decision, in fact I am very glad we did what we did and moved out then and didn’t rent. We managed to get a 100% mortgage, which I understand you can’t get any more. Thank heaven that we did, as saving for a deposit was impossible, as both I and the other half owned a modest 12 grand back then.
When you are young, the future is bright and impossible and if you’re anything like me and an obsessive and worrying fantasist, I am sure you imagined your life would be an endless realm of pleasure and joy. I suppose it’s rather like getting a new tattoo- you focus more on the end project and how good it’s going to look rather than considering how uncomfortable it’s going to be having it done. I always imagined I would do something really exciting for a living, have a lot of money, live somewhere really fancy and be in a relationship with someone who did something really cool- I secretly always hoped to be a musicians partner. I ended up as a secretary living with a car salesman. I always swore I would never get married, and next year I am. The people who actually do make us happy are very rarely the ones that we believe will, and I am so lucky to have found such serendipity.
It’s pretty hard looking at teenagers and the worries and fears that plague them at that age. If like me, you’re addicted to twitter and tumblr you will see the endless tales of woe and horror. I am genuinely not trivialising the emotions that young girls have. I was one myself, not so long ago, and I remember that what people thought of you, what you looked like and whether anyone would actually ever love you was crippling. The self-doubt rules you with an iron fist and you envy everyone around you. I would love to tell them that it gets easier but in the same vein I wouldn’t wish to lie to them. It doesn’t necessarily get easier, it just gets different. However, the worries that literally ruled your life as a teenager will seem much less important as you move through your years. When I was a teenager, I hated myself. Not in a silly teenage angst kind of way, as in I genuinely hated myself and couldn’t think for the life of me why anyone with half a brain would willingly spend time with me. I put hours of effort into my appearance but actually not really that much into myself. I loved to read and I actually quite enjoyed school but really, what did it matter if he never noticed me? WHY WON’T HE NOTICE ME?
Self-confidence is something that comes with time. There is no quick fix so if anyone is reading this who is still in their younger years, I am sorry to say that there is no magical solution. It will never go away completely and there will still be days where you wake up and think “I am an enormous ugly moose and I may as well go and stick my face in the food blender” but now, I actually care more that people think I am a good person rather than they find me attractive. You learn that love has very little to do with appearances and a whole heap more to do with how you feel about the person. You fall in love with their mind and their humour, their caring and their kindness, not because they have rocking abs. Sexual attraction is very important and don’t get me wrong, even after 9 years I still see Mr Sarah dressed up in a 3 piece suit and think “Damn. I chose well” but if nothing was left of his body but his soul and mind remained intact, I would still love him as fiercely as I do now. It isn’t so much that every body worry you have goes away, more that you make peace with yourself. I remember my teenage years all too well, and I promise you, pretty doesn’t make a home and skinny doesn’t make you laugh. I only hope that you stick around long enough to find that out.
Friendships later in life are not without their trials and tribulations but the drama of teenage friendships will go away. I sometimes sort of miss the openness we had as young women, when we would grab each other and plant a smacker on heavily foundationed cheeks for no reason other than we adored each other. Now we express our love with flowers and dinners. We remember birthdays and anniversaries and actually ask after family because we genuinely care. It is hard when I think I used to spend 12 hours a day, every single day, in the company of my friends because I had literally nothing else to do, whereas now our relationships, marriages, children, jobs and money issues force us apart. It isn’t any less of a love, certainly not on my part anyway, and it is a relief to know we no longer have to fight because Jessica was so totally snogging that guy she WELL knew you liked. Again, I am not trivialising emotions here, merely stating that your priorities will shift as you get older.
Growing up is a heavy burden and one that not all of us bear all that well. It is a simple fact that you are going to hate yourself and your body, you are going to fight with your friends, you are going to experience heartache and you are going to weep, wail, thrash and moan about anything and everything. I actually would advise making the most of the whole damn mess, and be careful what you wish for. I craved and longed for curves as a young woman, and now I have more curves than a slinky, and spend the majority of my time busting the buttons off shirts. I don’t love myself, not yet, but I have now come to accept that I am not going to wake up one day looking like Jessica Alba and that you’d be pretty damn surprised how many men and women have a penchant for short, speccy gingers who wear very large boots. I know that it is hard, and I know that people can be astonishingly cruel with the thing that they say, homing in on any slight difference like a hawk and yelling things at you because, in their eyes, you’re too thin, you’re too fat, you wear glasses, you have spots, or you’re gay. You’re a loose woman if you sleep with someone and a prude if you don’t. You’re a weirdo because of the music you like and an idiot because you read all the time. When you bump into that bully in the street at my age, let me tell you this, you will feel nothing. Literally nothing. You just won’t care any longer, I promise. You’ll care what your parents think, what your friends think and what your boss or professors think, but you won’t give a flying hoot about what they think any more. It is a marvellous feeling so if you do have someone who seems to make your life a living hell on a daily basis for no reason other than they can, I promise you one day, you simply won’t care anymore. My only wish is that that day could be today.
I suppose it would be rude of me to say “I understand how you feel” as they may not necessarily be true. I am not you and I can’t tell you how you feel. What I am trying to say is that I can speak from experience that a lot of the issues you have as a young person won’t trouble you forever. You won’t always hate the way you look or the way you are, and I promise you, whatever you’re obsessed with, you will find other people who share your passion and want to be your friend because of this. If you feel alone or you feel lonely, you won’t always. Whatever it is that you feel you don’t deserve, I promise you that you do deserve happiness, and love, and friendship, because everyone does. Just hang in there and I promise you, it does get better.
