Literally Everything is Made Up

Reminiscing over a reanimated bluebottle and dwelling on what is real.

I have a really specific memory from year one of primary school, sitting at the back right-hand side of the carpet, on the type of bonded, tightly woven rough nylon carpets you only find in classrooms or offices. Legs crossed, deep in a kind of daydream, I noticed a dead bluebottle on the windowsill right where the frosted glass met stickily varnished wooden frame, looking out level with the playground floor where scuffed shoes of the kids outside scuttled by. I gently pinched it's crisp corpse between my thumb and forefinger, with enough force to grip it, but not so much that the structural integrity of it’s body or wings was compromised. Lifting it, I inspected it closely: folded in legs, large dry eyes.

My favourite game during class at the time was to take one of my school uniform colour-coded hair bands and pull out a single elastic thread, not snapping it off but instead bouncing it like a yoyo, making the hair band bob and dart and swing in the air, flying almost. Without thinking too much, I placed the fly on my knee, and found a hair band in my fleece pocket, elastic already prepared, but this time I stretched it as far as it would go before snapping it off. I tied one end of it around the bluebottle’s crunchy torso, childlike dexterity doing a somewhat wonky job, and before long it was airborne again - lighter than the hairbands were, it bounced less and swung more, and this activity captivated my attention until the bell rang for break time.

I’m not altogether sure what prompted this memory to resurface so viscerally in my mind…perhaps it is in part to it now being bluebottle season, open doors and windows tricking them inside, unable to get back out. The stressful buzzing sound of their misfortune sets my teeth on edge. Living feels a little like that sometimes. London is just increasingly more expensive, creative industries increasingly more inaccessible, and I seem to be getting older day by day without getting to the place I imagined I’d be at by now. I suppose when I imagined this idealistic future I hadn’t expected or planned for years of a horrific conservative government, lockdowns and global pandemics, losing a day job, becoming a rescue puppy dad. It has all been feeling a little swamping lately, and as I desperately fly from room to room, each time I see an exit it consistently seems to be yet another imprisoning window pane.

Age is definitely a barrier I seem to bang my bluebottle head against the most frequently lately. I’m approaching my 27th birthday later this year, and that just sounds all too close to 30 for my liking. I sincerely dislike the idea of ages having rules, preconceptions, anything of the sort - but just like every other social construct, it takes time and effort to break out of the habit. I’ve been working on it, but it wasn’t until the other day, listening to The Blindboy Podcast whilst doing my laundry, I heard a fact that shifted my worldview irrevocably.

“Teenager’s didn’t really exist before the 1950’s.”

My jaw hit the floor. It’s completely true - two generations back from me, being a teenager didn’t really exist - you were a child, then an adult. Simple. You didn’t work, then you did. Or, often you worked the entire time. Even to be a child was a freedom granted to the privileged few, for a good while. My Grandparents left school at 14, if that, and were working immediately from there. Most people didn’t make it into old age, and those still alive all had to chip in to help support the family. My dad was a teenager to some extent, but he still got a job straight from school at 16, while my mum experienced a little more of that transitional age by getting the chance to study at university. By the time I was born, being a teenager was a huge deal - something you couldn’t wait to be. I remember cosplaying it as a child, putting sunglasses on and nodding my head with a unbothered expression listening to my dad’s walkman. It’s an age that nowadays seems to last beyond 19, following you in spirit until you finish university, and since Covid does seem to follow you into your twenties a little deeper than it used to.

The word teenager dates back to the early 1900s, however it didn’t gain popular use until a confluence of social factors caused this age to be separated out as an individual group. Schooling becoming compulsory up until at least age 16, and economic growth resulted in less teenagers having to work to provide for their family, but rather earn money for themselves (or in some cases, be given money from their parents). More teenagers were able to spend money, meaning businesses saw a new market to advertise to, creating a wave of media aimed at this group. We then have the invention of the car, and this becoming more accessible - and by the 60s and 70s, you have a group of people with an identity shaped by commercial marketing, new found time and money on their hands, and transport to give them independence. The teenager was well and truly born. *Note: there are many more factors that resulted in the birth of the teenager, the above being a very simplified and diluted overview.

It is, however, entirely fabricated. Teenagers are grumpy and sleep in more? Sure, but anyone going through puberty does and I did that when I was 11. I also was arguably more tired in my early twenties. Teenagers like dressing up and shopping? I don’t have to point out that this doesn’t have an age restriction, who doesn’t enjoy new things and dressing up is much more of an enjoyment that depends on your personal preferences rather than an age based one. Teenagers are rebellious? Even babies have tantrums. Adults rebel against their parents constantly, too. Teenagers are unpredictable, fun-loving, enjoying partying and park drinking? Literally who doesn’t - adults will say they don’t, but they ABSOLUTELY do. They just reframe park drinking as a wedding or glamping and partying as brunch, and they get shitfaced just the same. Being a teenager isn’t a real thing - everyone’s experience of age is entirely personal, and while we might have similarities in what happens to our body, or what we’re able to do socially - the actual nitty gritty of what we like, want to do, or feel is entirely ours to create.

Just the reminder that these social constructs, these window pane barriers have only had their current parameters for a few decades really takes the wind out of their sails - the threat level feels reduced, I feel able to relax enough to look up and see the top of the window is in fact cracked open, just enough for me to propel my buzzing fly body through. I think the way out of the maze is to destroy everything I know - relationship anarchy, gender anarchy, fuck it, why not throw some anarchy into the concept of ageing too. I’ll catch you on the flipside, being a twenty-something forever.

Yours,

Eerie