remember being 12?

I have absolutely no memories of my twelfth birthday. I didn’t actually start enjoying my birthday until I turned 19, but I at least remember most of my birthdays. I’ve had birthday parties, birthday dinners, and birthdays in other countries, but I think it’s safe to assume that none of those are how I spent my 12th birthday.

There’s something about being 12 that feels suffocating. It was 2016, the year of the Kylie Jenner Lip Kit and Beyonce’s Formation album. I downloaded Snapchat and Instagram late 2015, and social media seemed to be at its peak. I know I was listening to a lot of Halsey at the time, which I’m still doing almost a decade later. I know that seventh grade was probably horrific. I was probably catty and rude in the way most seventh grade girls are. I do remember feeling really insecure, but I also felt like no one was cooler than me.  My music taste was a mixture of A Boogie and 5 Seconds of Summer. I felt like everyone secretly hated me, and while I still feel that way sometimes, I’ve gotten better at coping with it. 

I thought that being 12 was the worst thing a girl could experience, and then I turned 15.

There is something so sinister about being a 15 year old girl. This was the year before I started wearing contacts, and I felt as though I had fully matured past the babyish desires that I had associated with glasses. I went to Governor’s Ball for the first time just two months after my 15th birthday, and I cried for two days after my mother didn’t allow me to go to Rolling Loud because she uncovered my scheme to sneak out. I felt like I was so interesting and so cool and so mature. I was constantly on the verge of failing my Chemistry class, and I had a crush on someone so terrible that his own friends told me I could do better. 

I don’t think society holds enough grace for preteen and teenage girls. I remember being 12 and 15 and feeling like no one understood me. We expect the world from girls this age, but we don’t even give them the space and opportunity to figure out who they are in the world. If they’re too outspoken we call them brats, but if they’re too reserved they’re easily dismissed. We call their interests childish and still demand maturity of them.

It is important to hold empathy for any preteen you encounter. Do you remember being that age? How did you feel? Were you confident, or were you just pretending to be? It is such an inherently confusing time for anyone, and I can only imagine how much more intense that confusion can be today. 

David Bowie said it best: “Let the children lose it/ Let the children use it/ Let all the children boogie!”

malaika <3