My Birthday was two weeks ago. On the first day of the Easter holidays (a very convenient date) I slipped into seventeen, the infamous age of dancing queen-dom. An exuberant, romantic year that balances just above the precipice of adulthood. As is the case with all the Birthdays I’ve lived, there were no landmark changes overnight. If anything, you could call Seventeen a little underwhelming; I’m still shorter, flatter chested and a much worse dancer than I’d have hoped to be by this point.
But equally, whilst the transition from Sixteen to Seventeen could be compared to a gentle trip on the fair’s teacup ride, the year itself was a transatlantic plane journey. And although no actual flights took off, there were enough turbulence at ground level. The place I find myself now seems a continent away from last April, when I was still mourning the loss of GCSEs and receiving Birthday presents bought in food shops (Morrisons was unhelpful, but my dad managed to scrounge a nice houseplant from Waitrose).
A lot happened in that trip around the Sun. A levels juxtaposed by Covid, a school newspaper launched, a Christmas Day spent handing my mum presents through a window. I’ve been luckier than most of the world; so much of the year can be remembered amongst friends, a summer full of nights that swelled with laughter. But like sentences, these moments were sometimes punctuated with sadness. Some of the people who were real when I was Sixteen have now become memories.
Even the best of times are bittersweet. My current position, balanced on the wobbly edge of seventeen, feels remarkably strange. By the day, I’m increasingly exposed to adulthood, taught and trained in the art of growing up. But still, I haven’t yet crossed into it. My mind might be getting there, but my feet are safely planted on this side of eighteen, sheltered from the realities and responsibilities of the big old world. Last week, I had my first driving lesson. And again, a sensation of displacement swamped me. It’s something I’d thought a lot about, but as I sat there with my hand on the gear stick, I felt horribly out of my depth. Similarly, God knows what would have happened if my instructor didn’t have control of the pedals. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
And that’s it, a haphazard summary of seventeen so far, to conclude the ‘Teenage Trials and Tribulations’ series. Two weeks of unqualified wisdom, partly because I thought you’d be interested, but also because we desperately needed an article. Wherever you’re sat on the scale of teenagerdom, I hope that some part of our rambles have hit home with you. This can be a bloody terrifying time to navigate; but it’s also incredibly precious.
I imagine we’re each living it differently.
Kayleigh Lennon, Year 12
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