Today I asked my mother what I was like as a baby/toddler. Now, this was very interesting to hear:

- You were an easy child.
- How ’bout in grocery stores?
- You behaved, yes.
- That’s not what I recall…
- Oh yeah, you did scream and crawl on the floor when you didn’t get candy! I had already forgotten.
- I hadn’t… I remember the time when you disappeared and I was so scared.
- You used to run around the store and hide behind clothes when we went looking for you!
- Hahahhahaha!!

I don’t do that anymore. Sadly.

Childhood is a wonderful time. We should spend more time memorizing what it was like to… Have a piece of strawberry cake, wear a cool pair of jeans or browse a fashion magazine for the first time. I don’t remember what it was like to have some of my favorite chocolate cake for the first time and I hardly remember wearing jeans since my mother preferred skirts…
We all suffer from childhood amnesia. Hence, I’m proud of being able to remember when I learned the amazing skill to write, which is a remarkable achievement in the modern information society. Even though most people aren’t able to remember much of their early childhood, it’s important to know that no one hasn’t had a perfect one – nonetheless, I enjoyed mine.

I believe that teenagers today are just as naïve and inconsiderate as 100 years ago, but some may say that nowadays teens are somewhat more reckless and slacky. There are old ladies in the supermarket appalled by leather-jacket-worn&torn-jeans style, pointing at boys’ hip hop clothing, gossiping when a girl in minimal clothes and skinny jeans walks by… Do you think you can objectively compare your adolescence to the youth of the third millenium? Okay, if someone was 120 years old and told me that the children of today are lazier than the children from the era of agriculture, I might believe them.

From my own experience, I’d say adolescence is like pulling a pair of really uncomfortable jeans on. They’re either too tight or too loose. You’re unhappy, everybody’s unhappy. However, I do not care that much about what people say of teenagers. I have to admit that I deliberately broke certain norms of the society (still do - to a lesser extent, though) but I hardly broke any rules. In school I behaved, did my homework and got good grades. At home I was a nuisance. Sounds relatively typical, doesn’t it?
For fun, try listening to Sugared by The Crash. (Parental advisory: explicit content.) “Jeans, I love you, you keep me warm…”

Well, there are many factors that would prove that even you, dear readers, wouldn’t consider my wardrobe youth as the most “normal” one. What is normal, by the way? Normal = nothing wrong with you, everyone accepts you, not popular/not discriminated…

Anyhow, whether I was the average kind or not, I am happy and think positively (or naïvely if you wish to think of it that way). There is no need for self-pity and depression; they lead nowhere. What you need is love – platonic, romantic, whatever.

As long as you know someone cares about you, you can feel free to be naïve and reckless, silly and slacky.
As long as you know someone loves you, you are able to trust and confide in your loved one.
As long as you love yourself, you know you can love someone else.

Happy New Year, by the way. Let’s all go scribble dragons in our note books.