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| Photo by Uyển Trang Nguyễn (ivy) |
It’s the eve of Aileen and Rosalie Wesson's eighteenth. They’re my younger twin sisters and, having grown up with them and wanting to suddenly capture them on the brink of ‘adulthood’, I take them on a walk around the river with a tape recorder rolling. In the conversation that follows, there’s nostalgia, wisdom and honesty about what they’ve learnt so far and what lies in the future.
It’s
dusk on the 2nd of February. Tomorrow my sisters — Rosalie
(left) and Aileen (right) will turn eighteen. Walking by the river at dusk,
they tell me what they think it all means.
Do you think you’ll
feel different tomorrow because you’re
eighteen?
Aileen:
I guess it’ll be a
sense of knowing you’re
able to do what you want more, and having more control and responsibility over
your life?
Rosalie:
It does feel like a shift from being seventeen and suddenly the next day waking
up as an eighteen year old, where there’s
just an immediate shift in how you perceive yourself. Seventeen just feels like
an age where it’s caught
in the middle, and you’re
not really sure of yourself or things around you. I just think it’s
a very curious age and then eighteen just seems a bit more defining.
Aileen:
Seventeen’s a bit
of an awkward age in my opinion, cause you’re
so close to being an adult.
When you say that it’s
caught in between, did you find that this year was a time of a lot of clarity
for you or was it more confusion?
Aileen: I
really enjoyed just being able to sit back and take things in.
Rosalie:
It’s
just a mix of clarity and confusion.
Aileen: Yeah
but for me, the confusion wasn’t
like, a bad confusion or a worrying confusion, it was something that I was okay
with and would just accept because I didn’t
have to necessarily know the things I wanted to know at the time.
Rosalie: I
think that’s the
thing. You can just think things and let things come to you and just play
around with them.
What to you, when you turn eighteen,
does being successful mean as an eighteen year old?
Rosalie: I
think being able to handle what life throws at you but also still enjoy the
things you do, and make choices that you know are good for you because you know
yourself, and being able to participate in all the things that you didn't get
to participate in when you were younger.
Aileen: I’d
say similar to Rosalie. I’d
say, um, not just enjoying yourself, but having an actual deep sense of
happiness because you’re
grateful for where you are, and you’re
learning about yourself and accepting things rather than trying to get away
from things you might not like about yourself. Knowing in yourself what you
want and going after it, that’s
what I think is very important.
Rosalie: I
think if you have enough happiness that goes down to your core, it’s
not just certain events or people that make you feel happy: you’re
actually happy, you’ve
been happy for a long time, it’s
not just a feeling, it’s
just a way that you are, then, I think that allows you to be a lot more free,
especially when you’re
eighteen and you can create your own world.
If there was one thing that you would
work to change about perceived adult life, what would you change?
Rosalie: The
representation of adult life, that you see a lot on things like, I don't know,
Buzzfeed and stuff, complaining about Monday mornings, complaining about their
work, complaining about not getting enough time off, I mean, that stuff could
be annoying but it’s only
annoying if you let it be annoying and it just seems like, people being annoyed
at it because they’re in a
group and they’re all
annoyed at it together, and they feel included, except, I think that —
Aileen:
It takes a lot for you to think differently about it as well but —
Rosalie:
They’re the
sort of things, like the norms of work life and adult life that make that
conventional lifestyle of adulthood, that nobody seems to want but people still
accept it anyway. I think that leading up to being around this age, it’s
almost like you’re
offered it a lot of the time. You’re
in Facebook pages, you’re
in your newsfeed and you see these sort of things where they’re
like, “here,
come complain with us,” or
“here,
this is everything that’s
soon to be wrong,”. And me
personally, I’ve just
tried to ignore it as much as I can, because nothing’s
as it is unless you say it is.
How do you feel right now?
Rosalie:
The next bit is so unexpected and you don’t
know what’s to
come. Everything’s
changing, and it feels like it’s
this shiny new thing. It’s
a nice way to see it.
Aileen:
It’s so
exciting for us, because it’s
also coming along with a box of all these good things like uni, meeting new
people, Rosalie’s moving
away (laughs). It’s hard
not to love it and just see it as a really positive thing.
What’s
the single thing you’re
most excited about doing when you’re
eighteen?
Rosalie:
Say yes to all date offers (laughs), and be myself.
Aileen:
I’d just
say, just being able to go out and get a drink basically and meet new people.
It’s less
organised, it’s more
carefree.
Rosalie:
Just getting to see all the different people, new people, limitless people, it’s
not just a bunch of people you know all the time. Just seeing different worlds
colliding into one space when you go to bars and pubs. It seems like there’s
more opportunity. And chance.
When I ask what you’re
most excited about, what are you most nervous about?
Rosalie:
Getting caught by the law (laughs).
Aileen:
Probably the same, to be honest (laughs).
And what would you like to leave
behind?
Aileen:
I think every day you’re
leaving things behind. I don’t
think you can be like, “I’m
eighteen, I’m leaving
this behind” cause
that’s just
unrealistic. I think that every day, if you’re
being constructive, every day you’re
shaking off all the bad things. It’s
not like when you’re
eighteen you just stop learning…
Rosalie:
If I left anything behind, then I wouldn’t
be the person I am today. And I really love and appreciate the person I am
today and it’s all the
scrappy, shitty parts that get me to where I am.
Would you prefer to be a blank canvas
rather than a defined person?
Rosalie:
I’d much
rather be a defined person cause being a blank canvas, it would be seventeen
years of disregarding everything I’ve
experienced and learnt along the way.
Aileen:
I would actually say the opposite. I’d
say a blank canvas. That’s
sometimes how I try and think of things, how I try and think of myself. Because
a blank canvas is useful. You can do anything you want with it, it’s
open to so many things… because
as they say, “in the
beginner’s mind
there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s
mind there are few”… nothing
should really define you.
Rosalie:
I kind of changed my mind a little bit.
Why?
Rosalie:
Because if you’re a
blank canvas, there are no preconceived ideas of the choices you make. If you’re
going into every experience like that, like it’s
a blank canvas, you’re
making room for new things. But yeah, changing my mind like that, that’s
a big characteristic of how it has felt this whole year. Is just thinking one
thing one second and then just changing the next.
Paint me a portrait of yourself at
this point in time.
Aileen:
I’d just
say a blank canvas.
Rosalie:
I’m like a
blank canvas but I’ve just
got some symbols on there. A love heart because I think it’s
important to love all the time, and the sun, because even when it’s
not sunny you can still be warm (laughs). And also a dove, because, be hopeful.
Any last words as a seventeen year,
eleven month and thirty day year old?
Aileen: Don’t
make me look as annoying as I sound on this interview!
Rosalie:
It must seem like we think we know everything, but clearly there’s
a lot more to learn. One thing I really enjoyed about being seventeen was that
I was allowed to be blind sided by things and not know everything. And I was
allowed to be a little bit silly and not have to understand everything around
me. I just liked being able to be on the other side of the bridge, kinda, like
not quite there yet. But that’s
gonna change.
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| 3rd of February 2000. |
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| 3rd of February 2018. |
 It’s the eve of Aileen and Rosalie Wesson's eighteenth. They’re my y...){kind=link}
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