Can you remember what it was like to be a teenager?

Those vague, hormonal, confused, angst-induced, tearful, growth-spurt days of old. Well, has anything much changed since being a teenager? Do you know what you want to do with your life? Are you fed up of hearing friends tell you that your life needs some direction? Well, this could sound like some kind of Talk To Frank advert, or some kind of plea to say that yes, suicide is good for some. (Bit ridiculous).

Life is what YOU make it. Doesn't matter if it's all gone wrong (how can it have done, really?) or that you aren't following the "designated path" of a graduate/employee/student/cleaner/life coach. I didn't have many aspirations as a teenager. Not to fuck up too much was about it. Or get pregnant. That was another no-no for me. So you can't really say it was all negative.

I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. Yet. Unrealistic goals put aside of course. I could still be a pilot. Maybe. Not long ago, I had a massive sob on my dear mother's shoulder about how life was shit and that I didn't know what I wanted. Of course, she put everything into perspective that I had so many more opportunities than she ever had, or ever will have. That I had so much to give etc. Wise clichés from Momma C as always. But when other people start to put pressure on you, start to question your motives for doing things, what do you say in return? Piss off, I'm working it out whilst reading Vogue? Surely life is about MORE than knowing what you want to do at the tender age of 22? (Maybe I will still be advocating individualism by the time I reach the tender age of 40). Surely life is like one big puzzle; that you just work it out one day at a time? I'm all for having goals, but doesn't "not staying in my pyjamas all day" count as a life goal? I think it does.

There is so much emphasis on getting a career and falling in love and having a house and children and pets and a dishwasher and a fridge/freezer with an ice-maker and SETTLING DOWN that it seems that youth has disappeared into an abyss of cheap labour and mobile top-ups. I long for those days gone by where all I had to worry about was if my mother was going to notice if I had cut my own hair. It seems that life is now ruled by the minority; those who do have a career/a partner/a "life" and that the majority could quite possibly be looking in from the outside; looking in through the double-glazed portholes of someone else's "perfect life".