VANESSA

Don’t expect a happy ending.  If you want a happy ending, go somewhere else.  I don’t like happy endings and, anyway, I don’t believe in them.  My parents are always telling me that things will get better but I don’t think they will.  What do they know?  What do they understand about being a teenager?  They don’t know what we have to go through now.  The strain is too great, there are too many decisions to make and I can’t see many rewards.

Look at all the pressures put on us now, for instance.   All the time on television and in the films and magazines, there are pictures, stories, articles which keep telling me what I should be like, what I should be doing.   At fifteen, I know I’m not really an adult, but I’m not a child either.  I want to be treated like an adult but other adults – including those who make the laws - all seem to prevent me from behaving like one. 

I don’t know if you feel the same.  Anyway, I’m not going to wait for your reply.  I don’t even care if you want to know about me.  Most people don’t.  If I tell you, it doesn’t mean that I want sympathy and it doesn’t mean that I want to know about you.  Do you get me?

Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt out of place.  I’m sure that something major is going to happen to me, but I don’t know what.  At other times, I feel that nothing is ever going to happen and that life will be one boring routine.  I can’t seem to break the swing from one mood to the other and nothing I read or watch seems to help.

 I’ve been a barrel of laughs so far, haven’t I?

Take my shape, for instance.  What shape should I be?  Models in magazines are like stick insects and make me feel fat.  If I try to wear the clothes that the fashion pages say I should, I look terrible in them.  Other times, articles say that I should be what I am and not worry about my size and shape.  But what do you do when you don’t like your shape?  I tried not eating for a while, but I like chocolate too much.  And my mum’s sticky toffee pudding.

And then there’s my face.  I know I’m not beautiful so I try experimenting with make-up but I don’t look right.  So I go for the natural look even though  I’m not really happy with it.

By now you’re probably wondering who I am.  I might tell you eventually.  I’m not sure who I am, so I don’t know how you expect me to tell you.  I think I’m different people on different days, anyway.  It might depend on what I’ve been reading or watching.  I try out different personalities to see which one (or ones) I like.  I don’t see why I have to be the same person every day, just because everyone else is.  If they are the same, that is.  I doubt it.

All right, then, my name’s Vanessa.  Silly name.  Too posh.  I read somewhere – I do sometimes read something educational  - that the name was made up by Swift, who wrote ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.  Well, I couldn’t get on with that book, so it probably explains why I don’t care for the name.  I shortened it to Nessa but it got turned into ‘Nessie’, you know, like the Loch Ness monster, so you can imagine how I responded to that.

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