Morgan Macintyre
Staff Writer
You wake up to a polyphonic ring tone, a mother calling from across the hall, a sibling shouting that you’ll all be late, a father honking the horn from the car. You’re tired, probably went to bed too late cause you were talking to that girl you fancied on msn or couldn’t stop watching the OC online or, if you’re really cool, you were out drinking in the park. You hate Mondays, alarm clocks, teachers and parents. You’re awkward, very self aware and not as confident as you pretend to be. You’re 16 and the whole world is out to get you.
Life certainly has changed, for the most part anyway. You may still be waking up to your parents’ angry call or the Nokia tune, but maybe for some of you it’s a room mate banging on your door telling you it’s twelve and you’ve missed your nine o’clock lecture. You’re probably still tired now but it’s not only the cool kids who’ve been drinking and you don’t even have to sneak into a park. You still dread Mondays and alarm clocks but teachers don’t feature, now its lecturers and TAs and sometimes you even miss your folks. You are not 16, you’re in college and the whole world is yours for the taking.
It’s funny what a few years can do to you. Did you think you had it all figured out at sixteen? Do you still think you do? I guess growing up is realizing that you don’t. That you maybe never will understand what is truly going on. The thing is, your mum is speaking the truth, “you’re not a kid anymore”. You know a few more things; you know who you are and what you mean to other people. You know there are people you can trust, people you can’t and that’s just life. You just wish you knew it back then. When your life was full of questions that carried the wait of the world like, “Will you shift my friend” and “Who’s your top 5?”
If only you could tell your younger self what you know now, warn yourself, prepare yourself for all the little things that at the time seem so monumental. What would you say? The person you were mad about in class never did look at you twice but don’t worry, you got over him, sometimes you see him in college or walking down Grafton street and the two of you exchange a nod out of sheer embarrassment and so the answer to the question that’s on your 16 year old mind is “no, he’s not the one you marry in the local parish church.” You do grand in your leaving cert, well enough to do what you want, where you want, so stop worrying about it. You still like Blink 182 but in a sad ironic way, and no, you never did run away to Mexico, although there’s time for that yet. You’ve not made your first million but even the rich are poor now. Tell your mam and dad to sell the house now and get anything of yours out of AIB. Move your money out of Ireland, anywhere, but not Greece, don’t turn to Greece.
You still keep in touch with your childhood friend and although you don’t see her that often you know she’s there for you when the shit hits the fans because, younger self, sometimes it really does. Your dad was right, the things that plague your mind now are nothing but an afterthought in the future. What are now your most embarrassing moments turn out to be funny stories you tell at parties and to charm lovers with. You do have sex finally but it wasn’t with the person you thought it might be with and it wasn’t as good as you thought it might be either. You were awkward and shy but with practice you get better, you’re not so bad at the whole affair now.
Delete that Bebo account, it will only serve as a reminder of how poor your grammar once was. But if you must keep your Bebo please stop making top 16s, and If you must have a top 16, stop taking your best friend out of it cause you’re in a mood. Believe the rumors, Facebook is better but also believe this, and I don’t say this lightly, it will ruin your life. You’re slowly kicking the habit but you do get addicted and it’s not a pretty sight. Don’t put up anything online you couldn’t discuss politely with your grandma over afternoon tea. Don’t write down, email or text anything you can’t stand over and, for Christ’s sake, NEVER SEND A TEXT TO THE PERSON THE TEXT IS ABOUT.
Don’t go out with people you don’t fancy cause you just end up hurting them and don’t tell your Spanish teacher you don’t have your homework book cause you’re moving house. Your sister will tell her correctly otherwise. Sometimes you have to fib but keep those lies to the absolute minimum. You don’t have as much to remember when you tell the truth.
Love, that’s something you’re in for too. It’s a fucking crafty affair and ,although it leaves you a bit broken, it softens you as well. You’re prone to falling hard for people but that’s no bad thing. It really isn’t. Remember that you can’t make someone love you if they don’t so please stop writing sad little drunken letters in your diary to the boy who’ll never feel the same. You have some years of romantic teenage madness ahead of you, of walking the long way home and kissing on the Luas tracks. But don’t get too hung up on the whole thing, he’s got a nice girlfriend in Glasgow at the moment. You’re always in love with somebody in one way or another, things aren’t going so badly for yourself now actually but he’s not the Irish boy you thought you’d meet in your first year. He lives a whole ocean away, which brings me to Skype. This is a wonderous invention but, as of most wonderous inventions, be wary of it or you’ll end up skyping away your afternoons, mornings and nights. You’ll never get out of that computer screen what you want.
Keep going to your nan and gramp’s on a Sunday. This tradition is one of the main reasons your family are so strong. You’ll never know how much you miss those Sunday dinners when you’re off traveling the world. Don’t worry though, they miss you too and as long as you keep sending your post cards they’ll keep a plate ready for you.
Keep up the Irish, if for nothing else but having secret conversations with your family abroad. This advice comes with a word of warning. Not everyone abroad is a local or an American tourist. The boy you talk about “as gaelige” and all the wonderful things you’d do to him. He’s from Cork and understood everything you said in your national school Irish.
Be proud of where you come from, even if it’s the North. Don’t try and change your name even if the only other person who shares it is a famous black man, being, in fact, an Irish girl. Don’t trust your parents about everything, even they are wrong sometimes, they’re just grown up versions of you with more mistakes under the belt and less energy in their bones. Remember nobody loses all the time.
People change, get sick, grow up and get over you. Things do not stay the same but as far as I remember that’s what you’ve been dreaming of. You do go abroad on your first holiday without your parents and you do get too drunk and get carted home by a friend who’d do the same again for you. You move on from the 3.20 an hour paper run, you’ve had a second job and a third and although the pay goes up it’s still shit. Not to worry though, those lectures you’ve not been to yet, well if you just go to those they’ll give you something to add to that CV of yours that as of now only contains your junior cert results.
You make something of yourself and you like who you’ve turned out to be or, maybe, you don’t. Maybe you take a few wrong turns and in your final year of Sociology decide you want to be a doctor, the point is your still alive so stop worrying and just stick at it. Life goes on as you knew it would.
One more thing before I leave you. One Friday evening in your second year of college you’ll decide you’ve had one too many and contemplate going home early. Under no circumstances should you leave that table. You’ll never know who you’ll meet at that unsuspecting hour. But I’ll give you a clue, you wouldn’t be writing this now if you’d made that lonely saunter home at 9.30.
Ps. If you receive a text clearly not meant for you but at the same time most definitely sent to you and about you, you can do one of two things. Let the anger towards the offender slowly build up inside, culminating in a horrible drunken fight off Leeson Street at three in the morning or you can just delete it calmly and pretend the whole thing never happened. After all, you’ll know by then what its like to be in the other shoes, shamefully pressing cancel as the ‘message sent’ icon pops up on your screen and with any luck they’re feeling worse than you.
P.P.S Drink plenty of milk.
