The Best Years of Your Life(?)

I’ve often heard people refer to your teenage years as “the best years of your life”. What is interesting to notice is that, none of the people claiming this are teenagers themselves. Which is why it was always refreshing when my mother would tell me that these people are blatant liars who clearly do not remember their own adolescence, but not to worry. The best years of my life would arrive shortly after. And I have to say that, as always, she was right.

Why anyone would consider the ages of 12-16 to be the best years of your life is honestly beyond me. While I have no insight into the trials and tribulations that teenage boys go through, I can safely say that the hormonal rollercoaster girls go through over these years are not the best of anything. These are the awkward year, the years when you start to notice boys but they won’t notice you, the years when the rules of friendship change and you forget which way is up. A selection of us gets lucky in some areas, and find themselves in the holy grail of high school cliques, the “popular kids”. I myself moved schools a lot, and found myself drifting from “unpopular newbie” to “barely registered on the social radar”. I found myself without an invite to parties that “everyone” was invited to. At one school it reached the point where my ‘friends’ would acknowledge me when I had a bag of crisps in my hand and run away when I was mid-sentence to talk to some boy. Needless to say that this was the school where I spent most of my lunch hour in the library. I finally landed a small friendship group that was neither popular nor unpopular, though it took until year ten for this to happen. I was only able to bask in its warmth for a year or two, but nevertheless I got there in the end.

Beginning high school, clearly destined for the popular crowd

The college years, ages 16-18, offered me another cosy niche between popular and unpopular, though at college these categories were much less defined. However with some of the beautiful, confident people there was still the sense that I just wasn’t good enough for them. I went two years in the same English class as some people with them only saying a handful of words to me, mostly “is the door unlocked?” when stood outside a classroom waiting to go in. Granted I never really made a huge effort to talk to them, but only because of the leftover high school paranoia that they would look at me like I had just crawled from under a rock. Whilst these years were fun, and I of course had my close bunch of friends who I wouldn’t (and still wouldn’t) change for the world, I still wouldn’t label them as the best years of my life.

No, these years were, unbeknownst to be, just about to start in the form of my university years. I’m not sure what exactly I had been expecting social group wise, but it wasn’t this. I still find it crazy at the range of people I’m friends with, the number of people that are lovely to me without question. If I’m loving university (and I most definitely am) it is largely due to the people here, and the way I feel accepted by pretty much everyone. There’s no such thing as “popular” or “unpopular”, and those who would have belonged to either set a few years ago seem completely unaware now. They don’t have to be, everyone just gets on and judges people by their personality not social group. I’m not sure what the ‘real world’ is going to be like, but whilst I’m living in this university bubble I’m loving the way people are judged on what they should be judged on.

There’s also the amazing sense of freedom that comes with living alone and being old enough to be treated like an adult. I was never comfortable paying “adult” fares for everything from the bus to the zoo whilst still being treated like a child. I’m very aware that I’m lucky to still be young and without too many responsibilities, whilst being old enough to make my own decisions.

Freedom... to choose fish fingers and custard over fruit and vegetables

My second term of my first year of university is ending in a few weeks, and after two terms I already know that these years, after the awkwardness of adolescence and without the restrictions of high school cliques, will be the best and most fun ones of my life.