This morning something amazing happened. Ok it wasn't that amazing I just wanted your attention – but please don't go. I have serious self-esteem issues. I understand the irony of this exchange given that at the moment I have a confirmed audience of one, and you my sweetest only log on every few months. Two, if my long-suffering boyfriend feels compelled to stop me from whining about whether he's seen my new entry or not. Blogging is a lonely life if you haven't got the guts to tell anyone about it. The link to it is buried at the bottom of my info page on Facebook... this is the extent to which I have faith in myself.
So you can imagine how excited I am today to have achieved something many people have achieved, a telephone interview and it isn't even that big a deal... except it kind of is because there are a million 'young people' as the media call us when were not smashing stuff up, or protesting about something, currently unemployed. Lots of them graduates. Most of them worried about their future. Most of them abandoned at the point they need their government most. Most of them very, very confused.
You'd be confused too if all your bloody life an endless parade of people – all kinds of people – teacher people, parent people, family people, old people, and even young people from way back when - I guess then they would have just been 'less old people', the very people you have now become, would ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I wanted to be loads of stuff when I grew up. At first I wanted to own a pet shop because I liked animals. Then someone convinced me the legal paperwork would be too much to handle. So then I thought about becoming a vet. As one thoughtful friend of the family explained, I could still be around animals but I would be helping them rather than exploiting them for gain. The vet thing didn't last long, which to be fair was a stroke of luck on my part. After years of studying and hard work, at what point would I have realised that not only do I find biology tedious as a school subject, I'm more of a physics girl myself, but that when it comes to real blood, even a little cut on someone ELSE'S finger can bring on symptoms of vertigo?
I soon decided I wanted to be a detective. Less Jane Tennison of Prime Suspect fame, more a Sherlock Holmes sans pipe and penis, with a note book and magnifying glass in hand.
When I was about nine I started taking my future career seriously, after all, people were starting to make serious faces when they'd ask me the question with the ever evolving answer. Evolution had brought us to chef. Seemed obvious. My parents ran a green grocers, I'd been cooking since I was old enough to prop a chair against the kitchen counter, I loved eating. People had their harsh opinions about this one too. Some said I'd grow even fatter than I already was if I got into cooking – which I can tell you is bullshit. In the short time I have spent in the catering industry, its a workout and a half I can tell you. Other's said I was too clever to become a chef – as if my so called 'increased intelligence' was going to somehow affect my future career. It takes many years to work out that no amount of clever is ever going make up for lack of experience in any job.
It wasn't until I was 13-14 that others decided to inform me of my true talent; writing. “Be a writer,” my teachers said, “You're bloody good at it!” Well, they didn't said it quite like that but you get me. And pretty soon I realised they may have had a point. I enjoyed it. It came so naturally to me. And it made sense given my Sherlock Holmes days when all I did was collect information. Journalism seemed like such a perfect way to spend my life.
Of course, once again, I couldn't please everyone. My grandmother burst into a nervous shake as she told me that being a journalist was dangerous. At 82 my dear old gran thought that all journalists were war correspondents. She was also concerned I'd never be home to take care of my home and my husband. A concern my father also put to me when I was 15. One minute you're a normal teenager day dreaming about boys and trying pass exams, just sitting in a car telling your dad how much you'd love to study at university in England, the next you've suddenly got a house that needs cleaning, a husband that needs pampering and a few hundred kids to feed Funnily enough, Housewife has never been high on my list of careers. In my life it fits nicer in the hobbies category, of the 'when I feel like it' persuasion.
Journalism, probably stuck the longest and regardless of what else I do with my life it will remain an important part of who I am. My teacher's were disappointed when I told them I was off to study politics and economics but the truth is that everyone had put me off. At the time there seemed to be a billion kids my age going off to uni to do Media Studies, a degree scorned by many. I thought doing something theoretical might give me an edge and I could save journalism training for later. Of course while at uni I became such a nervous wreck I almost stopped writing all together. To this day my hard-drive is a cemetery of half written articles and barely started novellas I'm just too sentimental to delete. While I was at uni and I should have been getting experience and making contacts, I let my chances slip through my fingers. I thought that whatever had once driven me to write had gotten away from me. And then one day last year I watched Postcards, a documentary about Chuck Palahniuk, the man who originally inspired me, and many others, to write. He had some sound advice during an interview. He said, “You don't sit on the toilet if you don't need to shit, you go eat something.” So that's what I did, I went off, ate up life and produced, well, this blog... which is perhaps the reason I am reluctant to attract any attention to it.
In the meantime, I need a means to live and as most writers will tell you blogging don't pay much, especially if no one reads it. My soon to be interview is for a paid graduates scheme in a logistics company – not exactly my dream job but it could just be the right place for me at the moment. That's really all we can hope for. All those people who asked me that question, that question I felt I needed to answer, didn't realise the expectations they helped to build. They never though their innocent question could cause such worry, self-doubt and sorrow.
My generation grew up thinking we could be whatever we wanted and the truth is, for a lot of us, it feels like its all about compromise and in some cases the complete abandonment of our childhood dreams. For many the problem is political. The government doesn't have much sympathy for higher education courses if the recent cuts are anything to go by. And the increase in university fees and marketisation of education affects everyone, even people who have been to university already. Soon enough degrees will not be judged by content but rather by how much they cost. The future jobs fund seems to have no future in mind for anyone and EMA has been abandoned forcing many bright children from poorer backgrounds into employment at 16, increasing their chances of being exploited by their future employers – if they find a job at all that is. Its no wonder that so many people are prepared to protest, by any means, for a better future.
For others circumstance also plays a major roll in their disappointment – losing loved ones, ill-timed moves and troubled personal relationships. And sometimes it's lack of good advice or the reluctance recognise it when it is offered. Sometimes its just writers block.
But then again my mum would say we haven't quite grown up yet. Maybe I'll get another chance. My best advice to anyone is not be disheartened by the metaphorical bell that tolls for all of us. I don't mean to go Anarchist on your arses but it is quite fitting. Demand the Impossible! Its early days for us 'young people'. We don't have to admit defeat.
Go on, ask me that infamous question again... When I grow up I want to be a writer surrounded by rapturous laughter all day, everyday. So, what do you want to be when you grow up?
