A Memoir to my Teenage Years
Looking back at my teens and saying hello to my twenties in style.
As I reach the conclusion of my formative teenage years, I look back fondly on my friendships, family and memories as an adolescent (I am holding back tears in a cafe listening to ‘Scott Street’ by Phoebe Bridgers).
Until you’re confronted with it, the looming weight of your early twenties dangles in front of you leading up to your final days of being nineteen. I’m not sure if anyone else harbours this cynicism towards their own birthday, but as the days have gone by, I’ve grown restless at the thought of unreadiness for my twenties.
As my near-birthday twin, Claire put it to me this morning in response to my yearly best-wishes birthday message, “we are halfway to forty.” No offence to forty-year-olds, but I have never felt more freaked out by a thought in my life.
I am, however, comforted by the fact that I am granted the greatest birthday wish of the decade-long wait for a rebrand being over.
Finally, I can detach myself from the horrendous pom-pom shorts, peplum tops, flat caps, sleeveless hoodies and untamed thick fringes that my early teens brought me, and the cringey boy tales that I try to forget now in my late teens.
Tomorrow, I step into the sophistication of my twenties.
Twenty is for reviving my natural hair, dressing for me and my own body, doing more of listening to whatever I want, watching whatever I want, eating and drinking whatever I want, travelling wherever I want…
Sure, there will still be the periodic major fuck-ups, neglect towards tasks that actually do require my attention (currently “taking a break” from writing my Film and TV essay due in three days to write this) and the occasional bad haircut, but at risk of sounding like a cliche, my twenties might not be as bad as I am making them out to be.
Happy early birthday, Asha. Have a great day tomorrow.
