Love Me: The Manoir

Metamorphosis

I had been such a loser my whole life that at fifteen, the slightest deviance from the norm was enough to make me feel like I was finally becoming something new. Fulfilling my prophecy like I was some epic hero on a quest to sex, alcohol, and coolness. Odysseus had nothing in comparison to the amount of social obstacles that I was facing.

It was around this time that I bit the bullet and finally began to look into medical treatments for my skin. I couldn't go a single day without crying about the mounds and bumps that littered my skin, and I would have poured bleach on it if I needed to. And that is essentially what I did. One small tube of Benzoyl peroxide later and I was committed to the medical side of life. Aloe Vera and tea bags weren't going to cut it any more, instead I subjected my skin to the strong and potent cream which would turn it bright red every morning. I didn't care though, because sure enough it did slowly remove the mass of acne from my skin.

The problem was, no one seemed to notice around me. I didn't want a round of applause – it would only remind me further that all people ever did was look at my skin – but I wanted some acknowledgement that I was transforming from an ugly troll into something beautiful. Into the thing I had always wanted to be. I had always assumed that when my skin was better my life would become this haven of happiness – the sole tormentor of my life gone.

But more and more flaws seemed to appear, more things began to get in the way of ever reaching that idealized target, and all I was left with was a red face.

I also began to tell myself that I was slowly becoming a normal teenager in more ways than complexion (despite the fact that having acne is one of the most classically teenager-y things I could possibly have had). I was invited to the third party of my life, except this time it was not a party – it was a gathering.

I played it cool as we travelled on the bus there, trying my best not to gawk at one of the beautiful boys we were going with who looked about twenty and was wearing a woollen poncho. We were greeted with cans on beer on the way in, and I sipped on mine tentatively, hating the taste and wanting nothing more than to swap it for a Diet Coke. Everyone else could swig theirs back with speed and a confident manner that they had done this before. That they had been to plenty of gatherings and this one meant nothing to them. I too tried to copy their mannerisms and engage in conversation like I wasn't trying my absolute hardest to remain relevant.

As we sat round the campfire, we played Paranoia while some of the couples in the group went and fondled with each other in the cold. I remember being tasked with the question 'Who would you want to sleep with here?' and feeling a dread fill me about having to answer with one of the people in this circle of strangers who I didn't know. I became so embarrassed about the question that I managed to dither enough that people got bored and moved on. The answer was most definitely the boy in the poncho, who would later give me his poncho when we did the classic teenage thing of all going to a children's playground in the middle of the night.

This is what teenagers did. They drank and smoked, and went to churches in the middle of the night (I didn't have enough courage to go in so waited as lookout by the gates).

I was validating my own existence through these experiences, hoping desperately that I was not wasting my life away as it seemed to finally be changing gear. I was accelerating down a dual carriageway, the wind blowing through my hair, my new life ahead of me.

I sometimes wish I had kept a small portion of that naivety, that excitement and bliss surrounding one evening, for a little longer.