This is not my usual kind of post. This is for this month’s Teens Can Write Too! blog chain, and is one of the most challenging prompts we’ve ever had.
Prompt: “Use pictures and individual words to show what, to you, is the essence of being a teenager.”
I decided to use pictures of myself for this prompt, with only a few exceptions, for an important reason which will become apparent.
learning:
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growing up:
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staying childish:
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change:
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november 2011
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april 2013
dreams:
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identity:
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understanding:
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breaking:
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getting stronger:
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doubt:
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shame:
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pride:
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stories:
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friends:
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enemies:
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losing:
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gaining:
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leaving:
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joining:
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memories:
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endings:
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hurt:
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happiness:
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fear:
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exhaustion:
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But most of all my teenage years have really all been variations on a theme:
self-discovery. self-invention. self-hatred. self-love. self-destruction. self-rescue.
self.
You can summarise being a teenager with one type of picture: the selfie.
So that’s why almost all of these pictures are of me. (And there’s plenty of symbolism and meaning in the ones that aren’t, things I can’t explain because you’re not me and you weren’t there and you’ll never hear that story until a great many things in my life change.)
Being a teenager is entirely about yourself. Who you are. Who you want to be. Who you’re determined to be. The things you promise yourself and threaten yourself and do to yourself and offer yourself. The days you hate yourself and the days you love yourself. The days you can’t bear to look in the mirror and the days you put pictures on your blog.
It’s a formative time.
I’m not fully-formed yet. Not sure how long it’s going to be until I am.
But I am so much more me than I was six years ago.