Hello one and all,
As Miss Tweedle-Dee and Miss Tweedle-Dumb sat on my sofa I listened intently to my childhood being read out in a technicolour of smelly gel pens and biro. It was funny to look back and realize just how warped myself and my best friends were back in the day. And so it continued into the afternoon listening to the letters that were sent to and from each other, silly poems and made up stories about Johnny Depp.
Speaking of the fellow, I still have hidden somewhere in the depths under my bed a ring-binder full of fan fiction stories written about Johnny Depp and the myriad of characters he played over the years. Romantic novels almost and crime fighting tales, drug deals and passion a plenty. I must say though that some of the visions and creative writing that took place on these online forums was very graphic, even for a twenty-something reading them for the first time in more than a decade. Some stories touched on the most taboo of subjects whilst others are bordering a film script.
Beautiful as they were it was a time where things were much less complicated, or so we all thought. Alas I wonder and dream of the days back in middle school where all you really had to worry about was what you were seeing at the cinema that weekend or how long you had to plan your outfit for the next Mufti Day. As a pre-teen, I was completely oblivious to the complicated and stressful big wide world that I would one day be a part of. No bills. No car. No Job. Heaven! Never did I have to fret about not being able to make ends meet on a minimum wage job that my government says I should be living just fine on. Nor did I have to concern myself with rental prices or how I would ever, ever even get a peek inside the home-ownership door. In my young naive I suppose I just thought that it would all comes naturally to me - I go to school, I get good grades. I go to college, I get good qualifications. I go to Uni, I gain a degree. I get a job, I buy a house. I meet a guy and we fall in love forever. Life isn't fairy-tale and unfortunately I can see what my teachers meant when they described me as a "pie-in-the-sky dreamer"
At school I was never a realist, always choosing to opt for the books and fiction over the cold hard facts of the classroom. Maybe that's why I feel so robbed of a adult life? Maybe this is why I feel like adulting is way worse than what I imagined it feeling and being like. Even now I see myself just simply drifting off into my own little world, imagining home ownership or my trip to DisneyWorld or a Holiday to the Caribbean. I am glad for Mr. Warehouse sometimes for he always is there to catch me and my ballooning ideas when they catch a bit too much wind, forever ready to bring me back down to earth.
Anyhoo, back to the brighter side of me - My Friends. The amount of letters we would send each other, talking about all things from love and boys to willies, sex and how we all knew everything there was to ever know about the subjects. It's funny to look back and read what we thought was true about life and the world form just a few sex-ed videos. And as creative as we were with words I am sure that if I caught my daughter, or son for that matter, talking and reading and watching the material we were I would be very concerned. In the days before Internet, teenage girls like us got our kicks from online forums, chat-rooms and good old trading out. I recall the days where Miss Tweedle-Dee, Miss Tweedle-Dumb and I would almost weekly jam the printer in the school library because we got caught printing too many erotic fan fictions or reams of pointless Johnny Depp pictures to drool over, only for the weekend to come so we could stay-up late at sleepovers and watch the adult channels when the parents had gone to bed.
I suppose in a way some of the things I wrote poems about and spoke about was a way of just expressing myself and at a time where in school it is so awful to be different and all the drama that surrounds being a pre-teen and a girl, I was certainly glad to have two wacko's joining me on the discovery into women-hood, even if we did stretch the rules - Then again, nothing has changed much, we're still all trying to test one another. But I suppose that is just part of growing up, and I wouldn't want anyone else beside me to do it with!
'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx
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