WHY DON’T TEENAGERS HAVE THAT AWKWARD PHASE ANYMORE?

By Tanya Hennessy, Image Credit – digitalspy.com

There was one thing that happened at the Oscars yesterday that I thought was extraordinary. (Besides the La La Land/Moonlight saga- WHAT A MESS!?)

SO, the thing that really impressed me was, Auli'I Cravalho – the 16-year-old who plays Moana in … (you guessed it, Moana) singing “How Far I’ll Go” in front of 1 BILLION PEOPLE (that’s the television audience for this event)!

Video Credit - youtube.com

Not only did she do that but she also had Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Emma Stone, Halle Berry, Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston and more in the front row! She was flawless. Glamourous, sung perfectly. She was hit in the head with a prop from one of the dancers and didn’t skip a note. She was exceptional and people… she is 16.

I remember being 16. I was not a glamour singing effortlessly. No sir, I was a sweaty, chubby mess (not too dissimilar to my current self).

At 16, I was at an all-time low when it came to my appearance. I had box dyed my hair blonde (my natural hair colour was brown), so it went a solid shade of orange. You know the tone. It’s rough on the eyes.  

Then, on top of that - I decided to cut it really short, like 10 inches short, and put butterfly clips on any spare surface. Horrific.

There are no photos of me at this time, because… gross.   

For some reason, I was rocking around in beige Billabong corduroy pants, seriously - how did my mum let me leave the house? Oh and it was really cool to wear kids backpacks when I was at school, so I was rocking around with a Barbie bag (WTF).

Glitter was in, so I would live in glitter lipstick, which would turn my mouth white with dense glitter.

What a glamour. Honestly, picture it.

But, it’s this moment that really solidified my teenage years. It was when I wrote a letter to a boy I liked, and asked him if he wanted to go out me. As I was 16 and texting didn’t really exist, I wrote a tick box letter which I gave to him at recess.

It read like this:

Will you go out with me?

Yes

No

Maybe

He gave it back to me in art class. I was so excited to see what he’d written.  

I opened the note, where he had made another box that said F**K NO and ticked it.

My 16-year-old self is so jealous of the glamour and finesse Auli'I Cravalho displayed at the Oscars. But my 31-year-old self is glad I’ve had my real teenage experience, because now I know to never ever dye my hair from a box just because the model looks hot.

#reallyf