Maybe it’s because I was listening to Mazzy Star on YouTube, but I’ve got a real hankering for my teen years this week. I am not one of those people who is stuck in the past and thinks high school was my peak, but I sometimes miss the endless days of school and summer nights spent cruising with friends. I miss those days where my only real responsibilities were to get good grades, help out around the house, participate in school activities, and write thank you notes for gifts received. While I didn’t live it like this at the time, I remember myself as being one big ball of potential. And I like that. That attracts me to younger people at this point in my life.
Perhaps that is why the blog Paper Raindrops appeals to me so much. There, you can find the musings, projects and preoccupations of Inna, a creative teenager who enjoys nature, amusing people by paying for things with $2 bills, dancing ballet, and making stuff. She also really enjoys being weird. I revel in my own weirdness (and was especially into being different when I was a teenager), and I enjoy reading about life from a teen’s perspective now. It reminds me of my own teen years, and I wonder how I would have approached blogging if I had done it fifteen years ago, at 15 rather than 30. I am certain I would have been incredibly earnest no matter the topic. Right and Wrong would have been as clear as Black and White. I would have showcased a lot of odd garage sale and thriftstore finds (tee hee, I may still). I might not be so keen on some of my past treasures now, but they really informed and helped me develop my current style. I was concerned about the following, as well as many other subjects: hard rock, Rush, Art (especially Vermeer and Caravaggio), books I loved, unexplained phenomena, aliens, Albert Einstein, Religion and God, Ally McBeal, figuring out who I was and who I was going to be, what made me different and unique, making clothes out of nontraditional materials, history, current events, the 1960s and Woodstock, Janis Joplin, disarmament, peace, freedom and justice, writing (including journalism and bad poetry), language, falling in love, how in the heck to get a boyfriend, making online friends, and getting over my shyness.
Blogs from younger ladies, like Inna of Paper Raindrops, allow me to indulge the teen who still lingers within. Let me know what you think of Paper Raindrops. What would you have blogged about as a teen? If you ARE a teen, what topics interest you?
Reliving my high school days from the safety of my desk chair,
Alison
