The "Growing Up" Phenomena; Affecting Millions Per Year

By Oscar Owen
Now I’m going to ask you something of you dear readers, and I want a nice honest show of hands. Okay? Right. Good. Put your hand right up, and I mean right up, no slacking alright- put your hand up if you have ever in the past couple of years wished your life was as carefree as it was back in primary school. Come on, don’t be shy, that’s it. YOU THERE. IN THE BACK. PUT THAT HAND RIGHT UP. There we go, you see, that’s basically all of you. (Well if’s all of you in my imaginary blogging lecture theatre (which I’ve named the blogture theatre incidentally) but the point still stands.)

You see, we all, at some point, just want to return to that world of freedom and joy, where everything was a game and nothing was out of bounds. When you’re little the sofa isn’t just a sofa and the floor isn’t just a floor. Oh no. The floor is lava and the sofa is you’re only protection, a rock in the middle of this sea of death which you must cling to for dear life or fall to your lava-ry demise. Ahhh, being little was a wonderful time. It’s no surprise that so many of us aging teens wish to return. And, here’s the thing, why don’t we? What’s stopping us throwing off the shackles of teenagedom and returning to the rainbow coloured ball pit of childhood? I say why not grow up and be young? Why don’t we maintain this element of childish fun and get to drive and be independent and drink and all that jazz? I say let’s be childish grown ups.

It’s one of the problems of life however that, in the process of growing up, we’re forced to, well, grow up. Already I see those friends I once muck about with so wonderfully leave behind their childish ways to become an adult *shudders*. Oh the disdain in which I hold that word. Because there’s a certain stigma attached to that word ‘adult’ now which we simply cannot avoid. To become an adult is not to become a person secure with their personality and their own self. Nope. To become an adult in our current society is to become a person who is responsible and sensible and various other words ending in “ible”. There’s no sense of fun, no childish mucking about, if an person of maturer age acts like a child in anyway they are told that its “not adult”. But I have long since come to the conclusion that the only way to live is to maintain an element of stupid fun.

Next time you’re stressed readers, next time you’re feeling a bit down or the coursework’s just got a tad too much then remember this and act on it. There is never anything better for stress than good old fashioned mucking about. Let me give you an example from the riveting life of Oscar Owen. I deal with a helluva lot of stress, it’s just a fact of my life I’ve come to live with. Most of this stress I create for myself, because I am a confessed worrier but there’s also stress from the incredibly mountain of work which comes from maintaining 4 A Levels into A2 Year, something I’m already feeling and we’ve barely started; there’s stress from my pitiless excuse of a love life in which everything’s ended in lots of tears and Woody Allen marathons to remind myself that true love is somewhere out there; there’s stress from my eating habits, my constant feeling of “oh fuck I’m going to die there’s a tumor in my head”, my poor sleeping pattern and, most of all, my panic over the state of my favourite fictional characters (note from Floraidh: he's not joking). And how do I deal with this stress? Well, most recently, I volunteered to put on some silly glasses, wave a wand about and advertise our college’s Harry Potter Appreciation Society. It was a day of nothing but childish playtime, I put on a costume and drew some silly pictures. Blessed relief amongst a sea of stress.

As that old northern genius Alan Bennett writes in his coming of age masterpiece The History Boys, the only antidote to growing up is “sheer calculated silliness” and I present the same idea to you reader. The next time you’re stressed or full of the woes of life or just feel like you’re coming dangerously close to becoming an adult *shudders once more* then please, I beg of you readers, take my advice and go be silly. Go put on a silly costume or talk in a silly voice or play with lego or just run around for no apparent reason. Anything will do and anything will make you feel better. Sometimes, when the future seems scary, the only thing to do is revert to the past.

Catch The Cliche & Floraidh's Personal Side

To save myself splattering paint at my reflection and writing sad poetry ostentatiously in cafes, I have to remind myself that I'm not really a fundamentally shit person. And that's the truth.

I can be self-absorbed, self-centred, self-indulgent and self-critical. But like most, I have my faults, too...(!)

This first year of college in Blighty has vaguely became a year of self-discovery. When I emerged out of Germany, bushy-tailed and bright-eyed, I had no idea what I was in for. But to recycle an old phrase, I was the proverbial Wendy making good in the big world away from Neverland. So I like to think I've done things in this year that do not make me a fundamentally shit person, and I have learned not to embody a fundamentally shit person.

In a few years time, I will perhaps regard these two years as the time when my niave former self found her true "self", got over her "self" and perhaps had a "self" esteem rise. So am I any closer to "finding myself" right now(and trying not to wince at how pretentious it sounds)? Well, you are shaped by what surrounds you. And as Aristotle said, you are what you repeatedly do. To answer that, I can confirm leaving my cacoon had been one of the best and worst experiences in my short 17 years, and I'm not all that sure what it's done for me.

Though the aptitude of my personal hygiene remains questionable (the weeks my sheets can go without a wash, the receipts lying accusingly on my floor, the mould I found under my bed recently), my domestic skills have improved infinitely. If I'm absolutely desperate and there's no suitable substitute, I will iron a top. If I'm not up for eating regurgitated meat, I will make my own dinner. I will shower without my mum instructing me to do so. I have made friends I've already assigned seats to for my somewhat distant nupitals. I've stopped caring about presenting myself in a way that wouldn't fit somebody else's definition of acceptable. The cold light of dawn enlightened me on who my real friends at home were, who could be bothered coming to see me, who was a friend or foe - and I learned to not get upset about the verdict, either. Managing my own finances, & saving money for a holiday too? All in a day's work.

The less rosy parts have included mood swings induced by a homesickness not even a phone call could stave off, and the silent resentment for my housemates if for one second I suspected they weren't feeling it like I was. I have made some terrible mistakes in the past year. I have said and done things that are so, so bad. I dismissed it as teenage steam-release at the time ("doesn't everyone go through this at some point?") before I realised not even being a teenager can excuse being...well, a bit of an actual dickhead. I also forgot about having a tolerable attitude to others, because I felt others weren't exactly tolerable of me - here's lookin' at you, 2/4 of my AS classes.

I considered going home on numerous occasions. Packing my bags, deeming it an "experience", but "it just wasn't working for me". Returning to my old life, back to Neverland, with people I knew and had known for a fair while - a safe familiarity, but not even a subtle step out of my comfort zone. But the thought of giving up on something I'd wanted so much seemed so feeble; coursework rage, homesickness, bitchy class mates. I couldn't face returning home and citing those - upon reflection - really rather poor excuses. "Coursework rage"? You want qualifications? You suffer a little. "Homesickness?" It's not like you've moved away forever. "Bitchy classmates"? They're treating you like dirt without getting to know you, and you're the one getting upset? Realise who has the issues here.

The going got tougher, so I did too. It has worked for me - it still does.

Like most artistic types, I'm quietly spanning out my life as a movie, in which I feature as the protagonist. I like to think my movie is an Arts Council-funded Brit flick, with a kooky soundtrack and tastefully dressed characters. It will be critically acclaimed without being commercially successful. I'll shrug off the baddies, have a struggle before overcoming the odds, and live happily ever after. I'm playing the part of the quick-witted sassy gal, who can let grumpiness get the better of her, but generally an alright egg.

Whether I'm doing the part justice remains to be seen - ask me again next year.