This was my homework for my drama class last night. I had hoped to be more creative, involving music and some dance performance but a sudden if not wholly unexpected flare-up of my ME and Fibromyalgia symptoms meant that I had to resort to writing this at the last minute i.e. in the wee sma' hours of Friday morning.
So, I think what I want to talk about is growing up.
I look at the younger people here and I remember being at primary school, on the cusp of going on to high school, with your whole lives ahead of you. And I want to scoop you all up and tell you that not for one second to ever lose the hope and imagination that fills your head right now; not to listen to the “mean kids” who will tell you that they don’t want to be your friend any more because they are the ones who’ll end up with no friends while you’ll be soaring to great heights. And I want to say to you, don’t grow up too fast – there’s plenty of time yet for boyfriends and make-up and high heels – hold onto these moments for just a tiny wee bit longer.
And I look at the slightly older ones – aye you lot – in your late teens and early twenties and I want to tell you that IT’S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT. Whatever you feel right now – scared, worried, unloved, unwanted, like you just don’t care or you care too much, that your heart is broken, that it’d be better if you just ran away, that you’re sick of people treating you like a child, that nobody listens to you, that nobody understands – everybody feels like that and that these feelings are real. The bad news is you are going to feel like that again and again and again. What’s important is that you learn that it’s OK to have these feelings but the secret is not to keep them inside, eating you up. Share them if you can with your mum or your dad or your mates, write them in your diary or on your blog or on Facebook, make them into a song you can sing. Don’t let them eat away at you and stop you being awesome.
And to those of you a wee bit older, at that age now where you maybe are thinking of settling down, that you are a proper grown-up now doing grown up things like taking on a mortgage and becoming all po-faced and serious. What I want to say to you is CHILL OUT. By all means do what makes you happy – working in a call centre might be a joy but do it because it makes your hear sing, not because it’s right. What’s right for you, that’s what you need to know. And especially those of you who are soon to become parents, what I say to you is go out find the biggest, fastest roller-coaster in the land and go on it, or bungee jump off of the Erskine Bridge or run about the back streets of Easterhouse shouting “you are all a bunch of scabby wee neds and I can fight yiz aw’”, because, my friends, if you think that’s scary, just wait. It’s true when they say having a child is like having your heart breaking free of your chest like the wee alien in the movies and running about and all you can do is watch it and try to keep Sigourney Weaver from killing it. I often think new parents should watch “Alien” but view it from the alien mother’s perspective. Then tell me who the bad guys were. But it’s the most wonderful thing you will ever do, no matter how many times you do it and even though you don’t feel like it when they are off in a huff or trying to cadge a tenner off of you or going on AGAIN about Harry Potter, it’s amazing. And it will go so fast, so savour EVERY. SINGLE SECOND.
But most of all, I want to talk to the auld yins here, like me. Those of us in our 40s and 50s, who’ve seen it all, who have aches and pains and struggle to get motivated, who one minute were chilling to Floyd, pogo-ing to the Pistols or shuffling to the Human League and then in the blink of an eye would be happy to give their back teeth for a comfy seat and a wee nice wee cup of tea. What I want to say to you is STOP! It might feel like life is over, that it’s time you moved on and made way for all these youngsters coming along. But you’re wrong. If, fingers crossed, we manage our health and keep ourselves active by keeping on doing what we are planning to do here, then I have news for you – you might only just be halfway there! You could have at least 30 or 40 more years on this crazy planet. That’s several more decades of reading great books, watching superb movies and listening to some great tunes. When we were wee, if you wanted to carry about all your music, you’d need a shopping trolley. And now you can travel with 800 songs on something the size of a passport. You can watch movies on that same gizmo. You can phone anyone from anywhere with that phone IN YOUR POCKET. You can look up libraries of information at the touch of a button. In a generation we have gone from watching Star Trek to in some ways living it!
So I say to you, don’t be in a hurry to buy a rain mate, a tartan trolley or a Pac-A-Mac just yet. Don’t wear beige and don’t order stuff from the back of the Radio Times. And don’t watch Pointless! I put that on iPlayer the other day to see what my mother in law was talking about and I could feel the life just draining out of me. Tell yourself right now that life isn’t anywhere near over. Grow up? We haven’t even started!
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