It’s More Than A Feeling: Part 2

Have you all finally had a chance to watch Euphoria? I feel like most people have at this point or at least everyone knows about it, but is hesitant to watch because of the extreme “wow factor”. Go watch it. If you are above the age of 16 I am sure it’s nothing you haven’t seen or heard before.

When I first started watching it, I immediately started thinking about my daughter, how I would be horrified if she ever acted the way these teenagers were acting and this need to be 10 years older than you are is much bigger than when I was a teenager. Then after taking a break from from my last post and watching more episodes from this show, I realized that now, more than ever, people are able to really be themselves to a magnitude of extreme experimenting. What wasn’t accepted even 10 years ago is being accepted now. We are leaps and bounds even though sometimes it feels otherwise, but really we have come so far. Maybe the way this teenage culture is right now, doing a lot more than I remember. It’s helping them to find themselves a lot quicker than the generation before them did. I am not saying that I want my child to act the way these kids are acting in this show in anyway, BUT I guess I am just trying to be less judgmental and see things from a other worldly perspective.

Have you ever tried that? As uncomfortable as it can be to put yourself in another state of mind, sometimes it lets you see things that you may not have if you didn’t try. I want to be able to do that when my daughter gets to a stage in life where she is doing things that piss me off or that I may not understand. I would like to think I remember what it was like when I was a teenager. I just remember it being a time in my life that honestly sucked a lot. In fact, I am helping my parents move right now. My mom is having me go through boxes of my stuff and I have stumbled on a lot of photos. Guess what? I have pretty much thrown out the majority of them from high school. I have kept a select few, but probably about 90 percent of them I have thrown in the trash. Basically my years living in California have been thrown away. I know, some of you are probably gasping right now, like how could you not want those memories. The memories are stored in my mind and if one day I forget them…OH WELL!

What would I have said to my teenage self as I am trying to understand what my daughter is going to be exposed too in about 8-10 years. Seems so far away, but it will probably be here before I know it. So what would I say? Honestly, I would say what my mom would always say to me. “You are wonderful and beautiful and one day you are going to grow up and be better than the jerks telling you otherwise.” (People were fucking mean to me in high school.) As a parent, I just want to make sure I am close with my kids. I don’t want them to be afraid to come to me about anything. I don’t want them to feel judged by me in a harsh way. I think this helps to eliminate rebellious behavior, at least it did for me. I wasn’t perfect, but my mother made me feel like I could be myself. She was probably the only person I didn’t want to disappoint.

This younger generation is a tough one to understand. There are so many more layers and so much more exposure to things that just weren’t around when I was younger. It’s scary, but I think there is much more opportunity in the experiences, the exposure and the freedom, to be able to experiment and figure out who you are and who you want to be a little younger. I sort of pose that as my opinion and as a question at the same time, because again, I am still trying to research all of this and figure it out. It’s intriguing and I am going to thoroughly be open to the adventures that are my children and their journey.

Let the chaos begin. I am ready to embrace it!

MollieAF