A short essay I wrote at the age of 16 about the glorification of adolescence and my actual experience.
I always believed 16 was a golden age when I was young, and I looked forward to it throughout my entire childhood. Movies such as Pretty in Pink, Say Anything and Grease depicted teenage life like it was an ideal phase; a time of self-discovery and experimentation, close friends and romance. Other movies such as Mean Girls and The Princess Diaries led me to believe that high school revolved around popularity and gossip, that being smart was uncool, and that being in a relationship was necessary to understand and love yourself truly.
All these movies began to impact my thinking on what adolescence should be. In these movies, there seemed to be a common theme that stood out to me: being a teenager was the most critical time in one’s life and, consequently, would be a waste if not spent on passionate friendships and intense relationships, partying, and experimentation. I believed that the memories made as a teenager were the ones I would look back on forever and that if I did not make the most of this very short time, I’d be extremely disappointed looking back. Although adults in my surroundings warned me to not “peak in high school”, I couldn’t ignore the message behind all these big Hollywood movies: being a teenager is supposed to be the most memorable time in your life.
The night before I turned 16, I began to reflect on my current life as a teenager and how it compared to that preconceived conception of adolescence that had been ingrained in me since I started watching movies and reading books about young adults. Slowly I began to realize just how deeply my own life differed from these depictions in mainstream media.
Instead of late nights watching the stars and talking about the beauty of life and my future, I was spending midnights obsessing over homework and crying for reasons I couldn’t explain. Unlike the movies, my skin wasn’t flawless, when I was 16 I didn’t magically receive a new car or credit card, and instead of caring about petty gossip, it was homework, fitting in and my own overpowering emotions that were truly running my life. I had no interest in dating anyone, but movies made me feel like I was missing out; and I had no interest in partying, yet another part of me felt like I ought to be out making memories and getting wasted. Why? Because teen movies told me that made life meaningful. I had believed in this single depiction of adolescence, and it had consequently made me believe my life was undesirable or inadequate.
The next day when I turned 16, I was irrationally disappointed that I didn’t feel any different, that I hadn’t gone under some magical spell to make my life comparable to the movies. I just felt a little more confused, a little more upset, and a little more lost in my seemingly unsatisfactory life. I began realizing I was going through an identity crisis. Being a teenager, to me, felt like being at a crossroads between hell and heaven and being dragged in both directions. Emotionally confused due to being on the brink of adulthood yet still a child, each decision I made felt like the wrong one, and every thought I had was a contradiction. I wanted to be self-reliant and independent, but I wanted my parents to help me make my every life decision. I wanted to fit in as a teenager, but I missed being innocent, being pure. I didn’t like most people my own age and felt so different from them, yet all I wanted to do was fit in. I wished for childhood, a time when I was oblivious to hardship and disinterested in being accepted by my peers. Seeing those teen movies and seeing those imperfect yet confident characters, so sure of themselves and who they were, made me feel as though I was on some other planet. I was supposed to love being a teenager, I told myself. All those movies told me so.
Then I began to immerse myself in real accounts of adolescence-- stories from my friends and adults in my life who were going through or had gone through the struggles of this phase. Slowly but surely, my narrow-minded perception of what being a teenager should be like began to broaden, and I started to realize my story was one among many differing accounts of adolescence. This allowed me to see that we are meant to experience teenagehood in different ways. Although there have been moments in my life comparable to the teenage experience depicted in Hollywood, when looking at the bigger picture, adolescence is far more complex, burdensome and demanding than movies and TV lead us to believe. Realizing that the way movies and TV shows portray adolescence is only a single depiction of what is a much more complex puzzle helped me to understand my own identity and who I am. Believing that having perfect hair, a clique and a relationship in order to “truly” experience teenagehood made me feel inadequate, but realizing that the teenage experience is an entirely individualistic experience allowed me to accept my body, my emotions, and my identity for who I am.
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