I spent my 20th birthday in my makeshift home — my aunt’s house — throwing darts with my family and recovering from major surgery so trying not to laugh too hard. I had planned my 20th birthday for a while. I was going to have a whole long reflective day then get fucked up with my friends. It was almost set in stone but my reality? whew. Anyway, the adjustments to my birthday plans isn’t what this is about. It’s about everything leading up to that. The seven years I spent as a teenager.
Every single year of my teens is filed in my head under one major event. At 13, I broke out of my own personal hell. At 14, I began to curate who I am or at least who I thought I was. At 15, I got suspended from school. At 16, I ‘fell in love’ for the first time. At 17, I got my first taste of real independence leaving home for university abroad. At 18, I took another step out of my comfort zone and went to a different country again for school. Finally at 19, I experienced a lot of loss, friends, personality traits, even an ovary. All these events may not necessarily be the most important thing that happened to me that year but they really packed the most punch. I spent most, if not all, of my teens actively searching for who I am like most teens do. I did everything to… not be me, which is kind of ironic considering the sentence before this. I just wanted to be who everybody else was, the stereotypical movie trope at this point. I thought being popular or skinny or ‘beautiful’ or being appealing to boys was really all life was supposed to be about.
The lessons I learnt from my teenage years are vast but the most important thing I learned was the importance of the people you surround yourself with. Every time the people in my immediate surroundings even slightly changed it had the greatest effect on me. I was my most authentic self from 13–16 because the people around me fostered that. Everything from 16–18 is a blur of wanting to fit into whatever else was happening in my environment and 18–19 were me very consciously picking the members of my tribe. Although 18 and 19 marked the return of my self awareness, they also categorised a deep depression, one that I didn’t even know I was in until it was too late. Thankfully, I’m in a much better place now.
Another thing I learned from my teens is the importance of self affirming. I wish I used to affirm 15 year old Tamyra the way I do my 20 year old self. I feel like she may have needed the words a little bit more that I do now. These days its become semi ritualistic for me to whisper words of affirmation to myself. ‘I can do this’, ‘I can handle this’, ‘I am worthy’, ‘Whatever is meant for me is mine’, ‘I am bold, fierce, smart’, ‘I deserve everything good’. The words may look plain and meaningless but they hold so much weight to me. They are the anchor that keeps me in place. I tell my little 6 year old cousins to repeat affirmations to themselves everyday because maybe if I started earlier I’d have believed in myself a little more.
Finally, I learned just how important it it to let yourself experience things. For so long I’ve been so afraid of basically everything. To some extent I still battle some elements of fear in my life but don’t we all. What’s important is that I shed a little bit more of that fear off everyday. I am allowing myself to go with the flow a lot more, not hindering my own progress under the guise of the thought that I don’t deserve the experience, ultimately that I don’t deserve any sort of fulfilment. Its a slow journey this one, one I wish I started earlier but still grateful to be on all the same.
My teens were beautiful and tragic and joyous and heartbreaking and boring and memorable and incredibly forgettable. They were everything and more. The only thing they are right now is over. The fourth day of March this year was a completely new beginning. The first step in my 20’s, which I’ve heard are significantly more chaotic than your teens, with bills. Just thinking about the change that the coming decade holds is overwhelming but I’m ready for it all — the highs, the lows and the lessons.
The end of my teens now poses the question: Who am I? The only answer I have right now is I’m still figuring it out, the quest for oneself is endless, no?
