The sorrows of the young - not to be dismissed

I am in fact a happier bunny today, than I expected to be. I had an appointment to which I went in fear and trembling and a certain anticipatory, sullen fury, with the dental hygenist. As I sat down I said in a smallish voice, "my teeth are all nice and warm and they really hate it when you do that hot pneumatic drill and ice cold water thing..can you keep it to a minimum"?

*Amazing! She became all friendly and understanding and instead of laying into my fragile little pegs with the heavy supersonic stuff she scrunched and scrabbled away with the old fashioned curvy picks and apologised over the polishing and seemed to be doing a very satisfactory job to boot! We discussed interdental bottle brushing and oxygenated mouthwash in a friendly way and I learnt all about her horse who may well be dying of colic (they do sometimes). And I came away with untroubled but shiny teeeth and a bottle of mouthwash. And a memory from long ago.

Visits to the hygienist usually leave me feeling cross, sulky, vulnerable and as if I’m sixteen again, or worse. (Today was an exception).

So, what with the poor colicky horse and having watched a programme about teenage alcoholics last night (which was utterly harrowing), on the way home I suddenly remembered an occasion when I was about 16 and all my waking hours were devoted to horse. (specifically a small, grubby, grumpy Dartmoor-Arab cross...well, the Arab bit was all in the tail and the pretty nose...who was given to kicking the unwary (me) and won many gymkhana events not by being fiery and fast but by plodding boredly and steadily when all around him were losing their marbles). I had a best friend, similarly devoted, (hers was a hackney pony, who was ALL fire and frisk and pointy ears and won many events by getting to the end before he lost his marbles (which meant he had to be pretty fast).
We did all kinds of stuff together, with and without our beloved hoofed maniacs. We travelled Dartmoor, we rode up hills, down dales and through wildernesses, forded rivers and climbed (small) mountains...well tors as we call them in Devon. We galloped, plodded, fell off, bounced, scrambled and splashed every possible way of wending around the forty or so miles surrounding our homes. Every Summer we regularly set off at dawn to local horsey events and competed ferociously. We were Thelwell children personified except for the pigtails. (and Alpha and The Count had the requisite numbers of legs appropriately placed).

One Summer afternoon, we discussed going to a local four day event (that means a bit of showjumping, a bit of prancing about in a disciplined sort of way, and a bit of thundering across the countryside leaping hedges and falling into rivers..always very entertaining for the bystanders). And best friend decided she didn't want to go.

I've never understood exactly why (maybe it was that time of the month) but as she rode off home it suddenly seemed like I'd been deprived of EVERYTHING that was important to me, as if she'd TOTALLY betrayed me and abandoned me and NOTHING could ever make up for it.
And I began to cry...large tears and huge sobs and enormous snotty snivellings. Which embarrassingly and dreadfully went on for the next THREE DAYS! This whole emotional event was largely concealed from my parents and apart from a kindly passer by asking if I was alright (on the second evening while I was howling my misery to Alphie's feet in the garage where he was stabled) whereupon I stopped wailing, reverted instantaneously to sullen teenagerhood and said "fine thankyou" before carrying on, albeit rather more quietly, amongst the straw and dung and stuff, nobody knew that I was suffering from...what???
Least of all did I know what I was suffering from. Being of a naturally analytical and unemotional turn of mind, I could see that I was being really weird...I could see that Best Friend not wanting to go to a four day event wasn't good enough cause for me to become emotionally unhinged to such an extent. I could see that there must be some reason for this huge and unmanageable despair and in between sobs and howls and snuffles (and of course, food, parents, bedtimes, mucking out and life in general) I had lengthy internal dialogues about what precisely was so unbearable. No answer was forthcoming and no answer ever has come. Infuriatingly I never have understood what the hell was the matter with me. I don't think I ever will know.
After three days, Best Friend came round and I hid behind Alphie's scruffy neck in acute embarrassment and muttered "I've been crying a bit". "Oh Why?" said Best Friend in concern. "Umm, Err, because you don't want to go to Ugbrook" said me, all puffy and swollen and snotty. Best Friend was astonished and, naturally, upset and after hugs and exclamations of amazement she said "I'd no idea it was so important to you, of course we'll go".* (Dammit, I'd no idea it was so important to me either!)
And I stopped crying and the sun came out (probably...it did that quite often even then) and actually I quite quickly forgot about the whole thing.
So, Ok, it probably was that time of the month, I probably had family stuff to 'work through', maybe there were other things happening that I forget now which added to whatever it was, maybe I was emotionally repressed and the disappointment opened a valve. Whatever.
The point is, if there is one, that children have ENORMOUS emotions. Children's emotions are at least adult sized and therefore, much bigger than themselves. And children these days drink alcohol. Aah! That's what triggered this memory.

After last night's programme on teenage alcoholics I was thinking God help me, if I'd been a drinker, then.

Then, there wasn’t any way I could avoid feeling my enormous emotion however trivial its trigger. But also I had the opportunity to discover that it would go away and to look back and wonder what the hell it was all about. But children drink these days. (then, I had never drunk alcohol or tried drugs so I had no idea that such things might have made a difference to my feelings...I just didn't know how drink felt). If there’s one thing alcohol is good at, it’s deflecting the intensity of unwelcome emotion. And children have these emotions at the drop of a hat...they don't need to come from broken homes or to feel unloved or to be abused, babies come complete with full sized rage, misery and despair just as they come with full sized joy, ecstasy and laughter.

No wonder there are 13 year old girls and boys out on the streets drinking bottles of vodka and litres of cider. They feel fine, they don't seem to have hangovers and they don't feel the braindamage. They don't like the taste but they get used to that. They feel fine.

I can't help feeling that children should never be given alcohol...not a sip of Dad's beer, not a little glass of champers, not a taste of Mum's wine. They should go on thinking it's something nasty tasting that grown-ups do for as long as possible. Not until they're as adult as their emotions and far far wiser than the adults around them. But maybe I'm over-reacting?

*I suddenly saw another connection between these two tales. I told two people what I wanted and they both said "yes". Sometimes this works really well!