The Adolescent Mind (Which I No Longer Have, Thank God, Although I Still Get The Odd Spot)
When I was an adolescent, full of piss and fury and angst and oooh lots of things, I used to write like this:
“I think I might be in love with *******. But what does it mean to truly love somebody? Am I even capable of love? There are so many questions ...” I would trail off into elipses whenever I could to suggest the hopeless open-endedness of it all. Real back of hand to forehead stuff.
I’d continue: “Does he love me? What did he really mean when he said he had to go, that he’d heard the beeps and his money was running out?”
At this point I would usually sigh, gaze off out into the middle-distance, beyond my be-raindropped window, perhaps absent-mindedly picking at a spot. Then, I’d pick up my pen and begin my exploration of these questions using phrases such as “joining of two souls“, “adrift in a sea of commercialised saccharin” “truth through wine“, and “hot and sticky“.
Actually, when I was an adolescent, truth usually came not through wine but through Diamond White cider. Or Diamond Blush if we could get it. But adolescence is no time for perfect truth, anyway. At that inflamed stage of life, we can barely get up to greet the cold light of day, far less look at ourselves in it. We insist on, nay demand the truth from others but wrap up our own in so much bad poetry, attitude and cheap cider that what our ideas make up for in enthusiasm, they lack in nuance. Besides, so much of our waking hours are spent pondering questions like those above.
Although we aspire (how we aspire!) to nuance with the music we listen to and the books we read, somehow the teenage years are the most black and white of our lives; alternately blackly bleak and brighly white but not as sharply delineated or barcodeish as that sounds. Something barcoded knows what it is, cos the barcode tells it. Teenagers are all clumsy, unidentifiable smudges on the page. Which annoys their parents no end, if that happened to be the page they were saving to read later.
We sustain black bruises to our egos and sensibilities at that super-bruisable age, which if we’re lucky will have faded by our mid-20s, but the world is full of people who never really got over high school. Some never get over how golden it was, and others, how tarnished. These are the extremes and most of us are in between. I came out from under the parasol/umbrella (it was a bit of both for me) shadow of adolescence about 25 or so when I stopped looking to school or uni as frames of reference.
I felt gloomy when I hit 30 which seemed impossible. (What?…How?…I’m 30 already?) But my 30’s have proven to be some of my most mentally and, I guess, intellectually satisfying since childhood, and most emotionally satisfying, full stop. Less edgy, jumpy and ragged altogether. Maybe it’s the medication, maybe it’s what happens with a bit more maturity and years under the belt, maybe it’s parenthood or something, I don’t really know and am not eager to poke for reasons really. But I’m 32 this year and am looking forward to the rest of the thirties much more than I miss my twenties, despite having to pay more attention to the “will erase fine line” parts of the skin cream ads. As well as the “good for occasionally spotty people” part.
I seemed to have wandered with the topic again. Ah well, so she blogged it, so shall it post. Sometimes I edit like a Russian babushka nursing a grudge and wielding her scythe through whole paragraphs. Tonight though, I didn’t even feel like posting but did it for the discipline (I’d make a terrific nun, apart from all the sinning). But I just don’t feel like reigning the topic back in tonight. Maybe I will tomorrow.
Anyway, I don’t write like adolescent problem-child-bride any more. Or maybe I do and just can’t tell. What does it mean to “be a writer” anyway? Am I even capable of writing? There are so few answers…
********
The firstpart of this post was brought to you by a glass of Pinot Grigio and the Dire Straits “Brothers In Arms” album, which I fancied, for some reason, tonight and sparked the thoughts of adolescence. Now, Leonard Cohen has danced me to the end of love and the thought.
Night night.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:38 am
“Which annoys their parents no end, if that happened to be the page they were saving to read later.”
Brilliant.
But now I have an urge to listen to Brothers in Arms, which I don’t think I own. Damn you.
March 24th, 2006 at 11:02 am
I actually think adolescence is quite an easy ride. Society deems it fine for teens to write terrible poetry and gaze out of the window all day and burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Try that when you’re in your twenties and working in your ‘career’ and you’ll be shown the door.
March 24th, 2006 at 11:04 am
When I read your latest and read the bit that Clare just quoted I thought “oo, that’s brilliant. I wish I could write like that. I am going to cut and paste that bit to convey to Sami that I think this” but Clare, you beat me to it. However, here is another bit that made me think this (and I know it should be in italics but I can’t seem to get italics to work here. I will leave spaces instead. Can anyone help me with my italics problem?)
Sometimes I edit like a Russian babushka nursing a grudge and wielding her scythe through whole paragraphs.
Lovely!
March 24th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
I’m turning 34 in June.
I’m firmly in the ‘had a miserable adolescence’ camp.
Not because of romantic relationships (didn’t date til I was 19, was a virgin till I was 21) but because of peer relations.
I was disliked and dismissed because I was a geeky, nerdy, pudgy, creepy dude.
even so, its remarkable how similarly trite my writings are from that time.
mostly piles of self-pity, really.
Great post! thank your booze for me, will you?
March 24th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Mr. Tinspector, my booze says, ‘You’re welcome’. Eddie Izzard said it best when he said that early adolescence is that time when, all of a sudden, you care about looking your best and God decides NO! You will now look your absolute worst that you will ever look in your life! I think it’s when we all start suspecting that we are in the middle of some enormous cosmic joke, and worse, that we are an amusing one liner tacked onto the build up to the punch-line. I believe only Mr. Bush knows when we will hear the Cosmic punch-line.
Sweet, sweet Fluffag! I’ve been having trouble with my itallics in the comment box too. I believe there’s some html tag you can add to itallicize something but, for the love of God, don’t ask me what that is.
Emma, you’re right. We’re twentyist in our society. By thirty we’re expected to have got over it all, but for me there seems no end to the terrible poetry I can still churn out given the right conditions: maudlin music, maudlin mood and something chilled and white from the fridge. Or even worse, cheery music, cheery mood and something chilled and white from the fridge.
Clare, I’m a real sucker for the title song. Gets me every time. Tears and everything. Got your email, by the way – thanks! Will reply in a bit. My children seem to want mummy to play with them or something.
March 24th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
The 30s are so much better than any of the previous decades. You’re finally treated like an adult by other adults, you’re well past the worst of the hormonal excess of puberty, your looks haven’t faded yet, in fact you move from virginal to much more interesting and confident, and you’re more likely to take control of your life.
I hit 40 in October, and that is unknown territory, but the 30s have been good.
March 24th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I never realised that so many adolescents wrote stuff. They ought to take up hobbies that will cause them less embarrassment in later years. Forget about the lines, Sam, and just enjoy rubbing the cream on your face. Touch is more important than sight.
March 24th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
I’ve wanted to email you but find myself unable to do so…and so I just wanted to say that your comment to me today was fantastic. It still sits, alone in my Microsoft Entourage in-box, where I have been reading and rereading it all day. Thank you for that.
March 25th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
GB:You’d think creams would mat the fur.
About italics: If it uses HTML code it would be [i] to begin italics and [/i] to end, where you replace thebrackets with great and less-than signs.
March 26th, 2006 at 7:43 am
,igggginnn[iiiiiiiiiiiiii[i]iiii,,…….
Nope, no italics yet but will keep trying! Thanks for the tip though Mr SafeTinspector.
March 26th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Great post, Sam. The Straits were my favourite band in the eighties and I still give them a spin when the mood hits. Deeply uncool, they’re the best kept secret in music after Warren Zevon and Lloyd Cole.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:56 am
“Teenagers are all clumsy, unidentifiable smudges on the page. Which annoys their parents no end, if that happened to be the page they were saving to read later. ”
Dude, I am so stealing that.
March 30th, 2006 at 12:39 am
Rob, like chillin’ bro. Gnarly.