Teenage dreams

Teenage dreams? We have all had them, or perhaps I should have titled the article “Teenage aspirations” My partner and me were talking as we do for hours and the subject of what were your aspirations in life as a teenager?

By this I mean what career did you want as a teenager? What sort of partner did you envisage settling down with at say when you were 14 years old?  In my English class when I was 14 (1978) our tutor asked us to write down where we thought we would be and what we would be doing in the year 2000?  At the time it seemed eons away!

With hardly any exceptions we all wrote down, that we would be married and be living in a 3 bedroom house with 2 children.  I should have mentioned it was an all male school.  The image of what life would be like for us at 35 was almost identical.  How wrong can you be as a teenager!

I wonder why in hindsight that we all imagined the same future for ourselves?  Perhaps we were using our parents as role models in some way.  The subject of careers came up in the same exercise.  I wrote down I wanted to be a car Mechanic.  I can hear some of you thinking why aim so low!

I can honestly say that’s what I wanted to do, I dreamed of fixing problems on cars that no one else could and perhaps having my own business repairing cars.  The other potential career I wanted to follow was acting.  These two choices maybe influenced by the fact at school I was a straight “A” student in Drama class and Motor vehicle studies.

Not a picture of me I hasten to add.

I suppose I was a rarity in as much as in the year 2000 I had 19 years experience as a car mechanic, and indeed I had my own business and I was self employed.  The rewards of being in the motor trade are in comparison to other careers pitiful!  On a personal level I was divorced and I did not have any children, or indeed nor did I have a 3 bed roomed house.