Teenage fanclub….

Lying in my bath the other day, reading a magazine and trying to ignore the knotty pinch of anxiety that had been bugging me for days, I was hit by a blinding realisation. It’s not just me that feels like this. Not that I don’t intellectually understand that, but knowing it and feeling are two very different things.

The fact is that very single person has ‘stuff’. Every single person has a cross to bear of some sort. Something that gets to them, makes them feel that special kind of loneliness that only a very personal problem can….Is it normal to feel like this? Do other people feel the same way about X, Y and Z? Or am I the only person on the planet who feels this exact feeling right now?

That kind of thing.

As I lay there in the watery silence, working my mind over this problem, it struck me that the one thing that we all share – this exact sense of ennui, despair, bleakness, this one very certain expression of human kind - is also the same thing that can separate us. That at the one moment that we often need to really share this sensation with another person, we can’t because we feel that what we are feeling is too odd, too leftfield, too stupid to countenance sharing with another human being.

You’d think that I would know that by now, particularly since I write this blog, but the very fact that I am writing this is proof enough that we all fall victim to this same cosmic trick, this bizarre feeling that can make us feel very separate to the rest of the pack. Which is a telling phrase in itself because we are not pack animals. We have a wonderful thing called consciousness. It is consciousness that differentiates us from every other living species on the planet. Unfortunately consciousness is also capable of making us feel lonely and worried.

Am I offering a solution? Not really but I hope that the stories on this website do make a difference, however small. Because as we see virtually every other week, being a grown up is one thing, but being a teenager and potentially confronting your first sexual experience is a rich source of anxiety for many young people. We may live in the 21^st century but there are still so many things that people do not talk about. I continue to write this blog because the power of the shared experience cannot be underestimated. 

Actually I also began today’s post with the intention of linking to this story and talking about the H word….hindsight. I’m not one to give the Daily Mail a big up but this is a really neat idea. Get famous (older) people to write letters to their teenage selves and tell them what they know now…that they wish they had known then.

It’s tough being a teenager. We could all do with a sense of perspective when everything is new and scary. There aren’t any short cuts of course. No one can do your growing up for you. But if you are a teenager, you could do a lot worse than to read some of these stories and find out that generations before you have worried about just the same things as you. Whether this is a comfort to you is another matter.

So as a parting note, if anyone feels inspired to write a letter to their teenage self and send it in to be published on this blog, I would be thrilled to receive them. I think you might be surprised to hear what you have to say to yourself…go on, give it a try.

I shall probably be giving myself a stern warning about my over use of the italicization feature on my Mac book.

Contributions to katemonroe@yahoo.com

Comments

[Maura]

No need to give the Mail a big up, I'm pretty sure the Mirror did this first.
Just saving you from having to ever do that, yknow :P

I think it's a great idea tho, whoever thought of it first. If only I wasn't still a teenager...

[parlezvouskiwi]

Wow - this is a fantastic idea. And I had thought about doing this for my children one day. So that maybe they dont need to make the same mistakes again.

Thanks for sharing.

[Hillary]

I would do that for sure, if I wasn't still a teenager... a letter from myself some years ahead would really help me to go through the problems I have now.
And yes, the stories on this website do make a difference, a lot more than you think ;)

[Virginity Project]

I am very happy to hear that the stories do make a difference.

And thank you Maura for the heads-up...thats good to know...

And Parlezvouskiwi..if you feel inspired to write, do let me know!