Coming of age in the 00s

Exploring the grief of what we lived through and how it shaped us.

This post is discussing the Russell Brand story, so might be upsetting for victims of sexual abuse.

I wanted to write a newsletter about a dress. A simple, pleasant piece of writing, about this piece of tattered fabric, that now lives underneath my bed, rather than on my body. It was going to be sweet, feel-good, discussing how we romanticise our past selves, how we grieve who we once were. How we cling onto these garments, sometimes even kidding ourselves that we will wear them again, when what we are really saying is: there’s hope I can be her again, I can feel free. Maybe I’d have ended the piece of writing by giving the dress to charity, making peace with who I am now. 

As I say, it would have been nice. 

But, this week, has made me confront a different sort of grief. It’s similar, in that both types are looking back on who we once were, what shaped us. But it’s also entirely different, as it’s grieving the could-have-beens. The experiences we might have had, the lives we could have led, if only we had grown up in another time. 

I wore that dress in the mid 00s. Fresh in London, I embarked on a series of work experience placements, catching multiple busses to Camden/Soho/Shoreditch from my Brixton flat. It was time of American Apparel, Amy Winehouse, indie sleaze.

It was the time of Russell Brand. 

Do I have to go there? Do I have to list all the things we went through? The slow seep of sexism that was - in ways I was and was not aware of - polluting us. Polluting me. It altered, it alters, my perception of the world around me. I don’t think I will. I don’t think I want to. I don’t think I can. 

All I can say is that, this week has brought a lot to the surface. I’ve had a low buzz of anxiety: jangling nerves that I’ve tried to blame on the moon/my cycle/the virus I had last week. But it’s not. It’s all that I still carry: experiences, memories, yes… but also the jokes I laughed at, behaviour I let slide. That guilt. How much I had internalised the message that men are to be impressed, so much so that - despite my strong, feminist upbringing - I was willing to bend and contort myself to please them. If they did anything wrong, that was me, me, me. My fault for not knowing how to play this game right.

“It was a different time.” We’ve heard this so much, this week. And I want to cling to that, I want to so badly. For myself, for my friends, for the women I don’t know, the women I will never know. But my job is to report on women’s issues. The last story I worked on was how abusers have begun to use the law, threats of defamation, alongside family courts, to silence their victims. To keep controlling them, long after the relationship has ended. I’ve also had to be across the response to the Brand story, stabbing myself in the eyes with each opening of Twitter, each time I read the comments on Instagram, of people - men and women - denying his behaviour*, excusing it. 

I’m really, really tired. 

I’m worried that (despite my optimism, despite the fact that we are - even if we don’t feel it - moving forward) things haven’t changed much at all. 

I’m thinking about how, even now, even oh-so-smart, oh-so-feminist I crave the approval of men. 

I’m reflecting on the pain of the past. My own, my friends. Experiences I am not willing to type out, to relive, just to prove just how damaging life was as a woman. How damaging life is as a woman. Now, today. 

I want to drain myself of all my conditioning, all my memories. I want to be new again. 

So all of this, it’s grieving. How different life could have looked, if only things were better. 

What do you think? Have you struggled this week? I feel I could have said a lot more, reflected more, perhaps made myself clearer. But the influx of emotions still needs to be processed. Although I must add I looked through some photos to create this banner picture and weirdly, it helped, the majority of my memories are happy. Remembering that helps. Lots of love to you all.

I would also still like to write something on how we hold onto items of clothing, is there a piece you keep? Please let me know!

*do I really have to do this? I guess I do. Brand has denied all the allegations made against him.