It was as fifty-three came knocking when I reflected on the fact that it was only a mere blink ago I had turned sixteen! And sixteen was significant. I could (back in the day) leave school, smoke, get married, join the army, drive a moped, have sex and operate a bacon slicer at the shop where I worked. Not all at once of course and not that I tried all of these of these on my sixteenth birthday – mainly because I had tickets to see Haircut 100 and I wanted to get my roots done, which took up a large portion of the day. Yes, this is what it felt like: one minute I was backcombing my fringe, adjusting my legwarmers and snogging my Duran Duran poster and the next I’m paying bills, worrying about my crows feet and leaky bladder and trying to figure out how to Zoom!
Amanda Prowse
I joke, but I remember so clearly what it had felt like to be sixteen and it was a glorious time. The world felt full of infinite possibilities and all I had to do was figure out which path I wanted to take. I was confident. I laughed long and loud until I needed to pee and spending time with my friends was the single most important thing on the planet. We moved en masse, reeking of Charlie by Lancôme and sharing one earphone each of a Walkman as we sat on the top deck of the bus, practised smoking and discussed who we fancied most at school. The height of cool was to have the band you liked inked on the side of your canvas satchel and anything my parents did or said invited an eye roll and sigh of such mammoth proportions it was almost comical. I also remember not wanting to go and visit my grandparents, as that was time I could be spending with my mates. Oh! Oh how my heart aches for the chance to go back and have one more Sunday afternoon in their cramped house while they made endless cups of tea and talked about nothing much… how I miss them.
And here I am fifty-three. My life is so very different to how I envisaged. I never did get to marry Simon Le Bon, nor work in a sweet factory where I planned to eat all the stock. Instead, I am a writer who lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere and who never wears make-up let alone backcombs her fringe. The confidence I had at sixteen has gone, meaning I now rather gently go about life, fearful for so many aspects: climate change, global pandemic and violence…
My new book Waiting To Begin tells Bessie’s story at 16 and 53 – where we get to hear all of her hopes, wishes and desires for her future self, in contrast to the life she now lives, hanging on to the tailfin of a marriage in decline and wondering whatever happened to that girl who danced to Soft Cell at the school disco and thought she would change the world…
Waiting To Begin by Amanda Prowse is out now, published by Lake Union in paperback and eBook.
RELATED: Seven things that bring light into my life by Amanda Prowse
I think the one thing I have learned as the years advance is how it’s the small things that bring light into my life; those little pockets of joy that when strung together are for me, what defines happiness. In my youth I thought it was a new car or big holidays: the things that were hard won that were the treasure of life, but now? It’s more likely to be enough hot water for a bath on a rainy day…
