For various reasons I've been trawling back through my music collection lately and one of the thing that surprised me is how many of my favourite bands or singers are the same people I was listening to 10 years ago.
I shouldn't be surprised. My friend Nick once told me that you'll never feel the way about the bands you discover after you're 25 as you do about the ones you discover before you're 25 and I think he had a point. The reason I still regard Belle and Sebastian as my "favourite" band has a lot less to do with their recent output (charming though some of it is) and a lot more to do with the role they played in my formative years when I was madly in love with P and couldn't imagine a world in which we wouldn't ultimately wind up together (great news to hear about baby number 2 by the way).
Maybe this helps explain why I've been in such a moony kind of a mood all week, stalking around the house like a moody teenager, falling asleep listening to that one Sigur Ros album everyone was really into at some point in time and daydreaming about a time in my life when it felt like there were still possibilities in front of me. I discussed this with my friend Mike, who was absolutely no help because he's as bad as me when it comes to romanticising the past and forgetting how crappy those late teen years and early 20s were.
So I've done it myself damnit. May I present: my list of THINGS THAT WERE AWFUL ABOUT MY LATE TEENS/EARLY 20s THAT I HAVE AT TIMES MANAGED TO FORGET.
1. No boobs. This wasn't a tragedy - I think small boobs are nice - but having bigger-than-small boobs can also be a true blessing when it comes to getting served at a bar or distracting people in a meeting from realising the fact you have no idea what you're talking about. For some reason mine didn't appear until my early twenties. I still remember going to the Subi Pub and hearing my friend A asked my boyfriend, um, also A: "Have her boobs got bigger?"
2. Clothes. It's not that I was a terrible dresser 10 years ago, it's just... no wait, 90 per cent of my clothes should have been burned in a bonfire. Why I thought the Tomboy Look was a good idea I'll never know and the less said about that weird woollen HAT I briefly sported the better.
3. Total lack of self confidence. This hardly needs an explanation but, seriously, if I'd realised at the time that actually I was kinda cute and had a perfectly decent personality, I would have had a lot more fun.
4. Unrequited Love. Again this hardly needs an explanation but in my advanced years I've managed to forget how absolutely wretched some of my crushes made me. And I had a lot of them (P, obviously, which lasted about 5 years too long; J, which ended so very badly; the other J, which, pity about the personality; I, which never even got off the ground THANK FUCK; M, which was always doomed; the other M, who I managed to treat awfully; K, who had that weird thing with the wolves.... I'd better stop now). Only going back to read my old diaries reminds me how miserable and waily I was for much of the time. Love angst is seductive in books and movies and music but sometimes it's actually rather nice being reasonably sure your boyfriend is fond of you.
5. Living with my parents. The thing is, my parents are good parents and lovely people and by the time I came along my older siblings had broken down enough barriers that my parents weren't overly concerned with my day-to-day welfare, which was a good thing. That much said, moving out of home is like recovering from a bad headache: suddenly even doing ordinary, everyday shit feels amazing. (Sorry Mum and Dad).
Look, I could go on. I could also go on to point out that the list of AWESOME THINGS ABOUT MY LATE TEENS/EARLY 20S THAT WILL NEVER COME AROUND AGAIN might be longer than the above list (I mean, come on: remember going out on a Saturday night, all dressed up and thinking this could be the night?) but what are you going to do - go back in time, do it all differently and this time really appreciate it?
No, I'm seriously asking: is that shit... doable yet? Please at least tell me someone is looking into it.
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