Summer 2011 // 16

So. Hi.

Hello! I don't really know if I should be saying "Welcome back!" (and if I did say that, would that be to me or to you?) but what the hell: WELCOME BACK!

As you might have noticed, I have been gone for quite some time now! I've actually been gone for so long that it feels strange to write! Yes, this is the extremity of my absence (Oh God, I feel so out of practise. Forgive me if this post is even more awkward than usual).

So. What have I been doing for all this time?

I don't even know where to start. First of all, I have been to the States, and more specifically to Hawaii with my American side of the family. For three weeks. Which was... awesome. To say the least. And I have done so many things, that you shall hear all about - in due time, I'm afraid, since I couldn't POSSIBLY write down my ENTIRE SUMMER in one post. Which is why I'm going to be doing a series of posts labelled "Summer 2011" inbetween my everyday posts. I hope that this is satisfactory enough for you, and I promise that I'll do my best to let every experience I can possibly think of get a little screen-time.

Though going to Hawaii probably is the most prominent experience of all, I really want to tell you about something else instead. So Hawaii will have to wait. With pictures, I promise!

But...

 A U G U S T    5 t h    W A S    M Y    1 6 t h    B I R T H D A Y ! 

So, on my birthday, I didn't have a Super Sweet Sixteen. I didn't have "Birthday Sex", and amazingly escaped having anyone post the song with the same name on my Facebook wall. I didn't get amazingly drunk for the first time, since I'm finally legal, and I took that step a long time ago. Instead, I spent my birthday in the company of the people I really enjoy. This includes my best friends from choir and school, my boyfriend and my parents and sister. It was the kind of dinner that just worked, just clicked, where everyone liked everyone, and I just basked in the warmth of it all. So even though it was raining on my birthday (birthday buuuuuh), I felt like I was surrounded by a bunch of suns. It also helped that they all gave me sweet and thoughtful presents.

So, aside from that lovely evening.

I'm 16.

I don't really know what to say about this.

I could state the obvious: another year has gone by, and with it another step of my childhood, I'm getting older, whoopeedoo, what a surprise.

Or I could talk about how strange it is to not be considered a child anymore, but not yet treated like an adult. The way it feels to officially be an adult in matters such as buying stuff, like tickets for the train or the cinema (I can now officially, and legally, see all movies, hahahaha) or alcohol (except that is slowly dwindling down to only buying grocery-bought light beer and cider), while I'm still a kid in matters like living with my parents and having to stand them calling me an irresponsible teenager while disgruntedly following their rules, not being able to go to bars, or drive a car.

I could talk about the difference between being 16 in Denmark, where I can drink and not drive, and the States, where I can drive and not drink, and how 16-year-olds are extremely different in the two places.

I could also talk about all the lovely present I got, marking that yet another year has gone by - I'm older, therefore there are no stuffed toys, and now birthday gifts include one from my boyfriend, which I a couple years ago would never had dreamed would exist.

I could talk about the fact that getting older is suddenly speeding up, that I suddenly realized that I will be 17 this time next year, and in two years I'll be 18, apparently an adult, though I have no idea whatsoever as to what steps I could possibly take in these next two years to make myself that adult.

I could talk about the way that expectations are suddenly piling up on my shoulders: my parents for my education (talking about french summer schools and Oxford and Cambridge and scholarships and whoopeedoo for a ride that I can't even seem to comprehend), my friends and boyfriend for my lovelife (hundreds of boyfriends and meaningless sex galore, or tying myself to one man straight away, remaining with the same person for the rest of my life, or realizing that all men are idiots and that I am truly a lesbian, or whatever will come my way in life), and myself for my life and dreams (will I ever get married, will I graduate, will I learn to dance the tango, will I travel the world, will I live to see flying cars, will I even live until tomorrow, and will I ever be finished with living?).

There are so many things I could talk about in relation to turning 16. But, as I am a habitual creature, I feel that a classic list does it all for me.

1 6    T H I N G S    I    D R E A M    T O    D O    B E F O R E    I    D I E

1. Write a book before I turn twenty.
2. Become the lead singer of a loud and edgy rockband.
3. Go to Oxford and getting a British accent and a degree in English litterature.
4. Move to New York and living in a shitty apartment all by myself.
5. Get a babyblue Fiat 500 and a babyblue toaster.
6. Know my city, whichever city, like my own pocket, navigating expertly between crooked side-streets, confunding conductor-lingo on the trains, and the ins and outs of the bus system. 
7. Become a freelance journalists for magazines such as The New Yorker, but also for free magazines like Bitchslap, Vice and especially Gaffa.
8. Knit my own pair of ugly woolen socks (preferrably multi-colored and lumpy).
9. Have a real conversation with Paloma Faith, Will Smith, Karl Lagerfield, or Mattias Kolstrup (and avoid telling M. K. that I want to be the mother of his children).
10. Learn how to cook and speak fluent French.
11. Be a cool, bohème-style grandma with long, curly gray hair and a million rings and bracelets.
12. Become known for always wearing only black, or always dressing in only violent colors.
13. Dance in the rain, and getting 100% drenched, with someone I love.
14. Go to the Easter Islands, the Sandwish Islands and Fiji, and to Peru, and South America, and Rocky Mountains, and Tokyo and Shanghai, and Russia in the middle of the winter, and the Sahara Desert.
15. Date an Italian man.
16. Learn how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookies.

1 6    O F    M Y    F A V O U R I T E    B I R T H D A Y - G I F T S

1.  Cupcake merchandise from the choir girls. Apparently my love for cupcakes has been noticed! And they even match some of the cupcakes I already have in my room.

2.  My favourite Abercrombie photo ever, of me, Male and V. From my best friend, Male.

3.  I litterally died drooling when I saw this box of sour candy. It's Fido Dido, or "Victor-heads" as we have nicknamed them (it's a long story), and they are my absolute favourite candy in the whole world! From my best friend Ida.

4.  A mixtape with fun lovesongs from V. Wanted to cry. No one has ever given me a mixtape before.

5.  A giftcard to Paradis ice-cream, where we had our first date. I gave him the exact same thing for his birthday, haha.

6.  A beautiful earcuff w. chain from V. I've wanted one for ages, and it's just... perfect.

7.  A giftcard of £60 to Amazon, where I have already started gathering a wish list of CD's, books and movies.

8.  Black leather purse from Vivienne Westwood. From my sweet parents.

9.  Black iPod classic, 160 GB. Technically this is a birthday present from me to me, since I bought it in the States with my own money. But still. It had to go on the list, since I love it to smitherines already.

10.  Toxic Waste!!! This is the best hard sour candies I have ever had! And the most sour! Not to mention completely impossible to find, at least in Denmark. From Male, bought in England.

11.  Beautiful silver ring with bluish gray stone, bought in some sort of street booth. Love it. From Male.

12.  Though you might not think it's that interesting, the dock I got to connect my iPod to my stereo is just perfect for me. Thanks mom and dad!

13.  My gorgeous, purple and black, clean (until yesterday) Vans. My mom got them for me in the States as an early birthday present. And they got all muddy and wet at an outdoor concert yesterday. Pff!

14.  Light blue watch from Nixon. I haven't had a wearable wristwatch in ages, and this one is just so cool! From my parents.

15.  Sweet tank top from Ida.

16.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. Now I just need Part 2! From the choir girls.

1 6    E X P E R I E N C E S    T H A T    M A D E    T H I S    Y E A R   

W O R T H W H I L E

1. Going to my first Dúné concert ever, in a rusty old club, where the room felt like it would burst from all the energy pulsating between the stage and the audience.
2. Seeing my first nod of approval from a girl in the Girls' Choir.
3. Running towards a bus in my high-heeled boots, seeing my hair whoosh around me in the mirror, feeing pretty, and yelling "Wait, wait!", and watching the bus, which was crossing the street in that instance, skid to a halt.
4. Hearing the words "I think this is the moment," and feeling my heart pound so fast that it felt like it would escape my chest, as he leaned closer to my face.
5. Getting an e-mail labelled "Aurehøj Gym", and realizing from the first sentence that I would be attending my dream school for the next three years.
6. High-fiving Mattias Kolstrup from Dúné.
7. Walking down the cobblestoned streets of Strøget in high-heeled boots for the first time.
8. The time he stroked my hip, asked me if I knew what he missed saying, and though I did know, I shook my head, and let him, wanted him to whisper in my ear, "I love you".
9. Sitting on the shoulders of a total (drunk) stranger in the havock of a The Floor Is Made Of Lava concert.
10. Seeing my diploma from middle school on my shelf, with only one B and one C next to a long line of dizzying A's.
11. Sitting in a room full of friends, in a pile of presents, all amazing and wonderful and thoughtful and picked out just for me, and realizing that it's not the presents that make me this happy, though they are nothing but wonderful, but the people that have given me them, and that this fact is so much more wonderful.
12. Successfully baking my first Betty Crawford pre-mixed cake with my best friend, and eating the store-bought icing from the jar with sticky fingers.
13. Walking down Kronprinsessegade with a bulging, stiff cardboard bag with the name "Marc Jacobs" on it, having just bought my very first Marc Jacobs bag with my own money.
14. Seeing the last Harry Potter movie and crying so hard that I had to hold back sobs, though I never cry during movies.
15. Walking back through the comforting ruins of the tents in Roskilde at 5 AM.
16. The first time I said I loved someone.

My life has held so many amazing things in the past 16 years. And I have been fortunate enough to meet an abundance of absolutely wonderful people along the way. The journey from 15 to 16 has felt both surprisingly slow and hurtling at break-neck speed, confusing and enlightening, relieving and totally frustrating, meaningless and completely perfect. I know this post must be so annoyingly happy and grateful with a hint of teenage-sceptism that it hurts. But I'm sorry. I'm 16 - what are you gonna do?

Thanks for listening,

I Am Roseberry.