Least Travelled

On Twitter there is a tag called tweetyour16yearoldself. Reading the tweets

is funny, heartbreaking and sometimes surprising. 

I would hesitate to give advice to any 16 year old now. Even me, if I could reach back from this great age.   I accidentally fell into agony aunting teens online some years back and safe to say, once you remember the sharpness of that age, the feelings that seem barely contained by your skin, you realise some advice might stick but the majority will bounch off the prow of the good ship Troubled Teen and neither of you should probably worry. 

And to be honest?  Most of the teens I meet are a lot more together than the adults.  With age comes uncertainty. So if you give a teen a list of the choices and possible consequences they will often surprise you with what they decide to do.  Most of the stupid choices come from kicking against a know it all adult I suspect. 

 

Sometimes I wish I could regain the fire that made me make any decisions.  Me at 16 actually had more of a clue.  She wore what the hell she wanted. Dyed her hair red, grew her nails to a demented length and painted them crazy colours (that you couldn’t buy in Boots in those days. If you wanted bright blue nails you went and bought the nail varnish in the sex shop in the Virginia Galleries in Glasgow.  Thank you the nice goth in the shop. I think you were called Chris. I have never forgotten laughing my head off at dancing vibrators with you.) She was an artist.  She was kind to strangers. She had a posse of pets that she had taken in since previous owners didn’t want them any more. She tutored younger kids in reading. She took part in school shows. She collected for charities and did all those dread sponsored things. She was a moody wee cow but underneath the really appalling make up was a good person.

 

That Kiz was a bit of a wonder frankly.  Remembering who she was is almost a revelation.  She was surprisingly individual despite growing up in rural west central Scotland. She was not stupid but not that academically gifted. A teacher tried to bully her out of a class she was failing. She not only turned round her really dreadful marks but passed a prelim in the subject. She was even cornered by the teacher outwith school hours and shouted at for passing that prelim as his chances of chucking her out the class then had sunk to nil. And still she stuck out that subject and got a pass at the end of the year. Not a brilliant pass but good enough. I am not sure the Kiz now has that much steel.  Not enough steel to tell the teacher where to go but she had enough steel to roll with the verbal punches and despite tears, to do what the hell she wanted to do.

 

Why did she do that? Well she had a plan. She was going to go to uni. She nearly got laughed out the careers office with that one. The careers advisor looked at the startling manicure and suggested she should maybe give up on the uni idea and go train as a beautician at the local college. She didn’t.  16 year old Kiz kept on trucking. Ditto 17 and 18 year old Kiz. She took the passes from her standard grades gifted from 16 year old Kiz and she turned those into Highers. And remarkably even a certificate of sixth year studies (advanced Higher I think it is now)

 

And she bloody well made it to university. Which was a surprise all round. The following degree was also a surprise. For the surrounding adults and still is for the ageing Kiz.

 

I think my 16 year old self was a bit of a gift for me. She made things possible that no one believed would happen. No matter the cock ups I make in my life I am pretty thankful that stroppy 16 year old me kicked her way up and out and gave me a chance of education and meeting all the people I have in my life.  At no age could I have dreamed of the experiences I have had thanks to that wee madam.

 

In fact, screw me passing advice back to her.  If she could fire forward in time and give  me some advice I would be pretty grateful.