My Inner Teenager

Why do I gravitate towards YA books, TV shows and movies?

Do you remember being a teenager? I do. I remember thinking and saying things like, I will never get old, or that I will never be like my parents, or that I will never use math. All of these turned out to be completely false. Like all teenagers, I was a fool and I learned after I had my own kids what that smirk meant on my parents face when I would say these things.

I was a very melancholy teenager. I listened to sad music, alone in the dark and often cried. I haven’t change too much in that respect. I still do this as an adult. I was also a huge fan of Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, My So Called Life. This is also something that I never grew out of. If there is a book, movie or TV show about teenagers or young adults, I get hooked.

I don’t think that we ever lose that teenager we once were. He or she stays with us. We hang on to those high school and college experiences and they mold us. We are always striving to be what that teenager wanted us to be, or hide from the things that broke that teenagers heart. Because face it, nothing hurt as much as it did when you were a teenager. Every experience was magnified tine ten, good or bad.

The trick to being a happy adult is learning to let go of all that emotional baggage we brought with us from high school, only to have to live through it all again through our kids! Adult life and survival has made all the teenage fun and drama seem like a cakewalk. Maybe that’s why I am so fascinated with 13 Reasons Why, Mean Girls and Pretty Little Liars type entertainment now. My inner teenager still needs her fix.