I was wearing a bra at nine, dealing with self loathing by ten, and by twelve, I was officially balls-deep in it. I was thrown into the pot of steaming dogshit pretty early. And that’s what makes the hardships of being a teenage girl sting even more. To be fair, that’s advertising, right? Selling you the life you want, no matter the age? Well, unfortunately, little girls can’t see through the bullshit. We sell this idea of what you’re life is going to be to young girls from the fucking get-go.
But where were the boys? Where were the cute clothes? Who took my fantasy and dumped a steaming bag of hot garbage juice on it? I drove a pretty bitchin’ baby blue VW Beetle and I did end up going to university. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually had a few of those things on my list. My life would be a fucking commercial, starring me, my best friends, and Jordan Catalano.
I planned everything out perfectly: I would go shopping with friends by myself downtown by fourteen, kissing cute boys by fifteen, losing my virginity by sixteen, driving a cute car by seventeen, and off to university to have even more amazing experiences at eighteen. I spent my entire childhood counting down the days until I could be a teenager. Nothing summarizes being a young girl better than this simple quote from The Virgin Suicides: “You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.”
Fifteen is, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst age. But I think she recognized what I was saying on some level. She laughed, which gives me a little bit of hope that maybe, for her, being fifteen isn’t a complete fucking nightmare. She replied, “Oh, I’m fifteen.” And my immediate reaction? She seemed much older than the last time I had seen her (oh, the passage of time), so I asked her what age she was. A few months ago, I went to a big family gathering at my grandparents’s house and ran into a cousin of mine.
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