Day 5: The happiest memory of your life

I can't say I have one single happiest memory. I could probably list a few that I consider to be a time when I could smile from ear to ear, but the single one I'm choosing to tell you (or bore you with) is one that I look back on to remind myself of how fun my teenage years were, and, despite the fact I didn't see it at the time, how easy those years were too.

2009 was possibly one of the most brilliant years of my life, where I had no cares in the world, my short term relationships were the be-all and end-all of my teenage years, I wore bright blue and bright yellow jeans that I deemed perfectly acceptable for the outside world (what was I thinking?!) and hoodies that were green and pink pin striped from Criminal Damage with bright pink bows half way across my fringe and dark black eye liner with far too much mascara...and my mother thought it was okay to let me out in public because I was 'expressing myself'. I was a pretty uncool kid, if you hadn't already guessed.

And there's a few memories from 2009 that I'll never forget, but this one I'm sharing with you just puts a little smile on my face. 

Camping was a big thing in our group back in the day, especially in Cornwall where you've got the beach one side of you, and the countryside on the other. We chose a spot down by a river, on a warm evening in early summer. We got supplies of various sweets (not that I can remember what sweets now but I do remember Haribo or something being stuck to us when we all woke up) and headed down to the river to make a fire and pitch up our sleeping area. This would usually be a tent, but we were young and stupid and chose to sleep under the stars in some sort of Perks of Being a Wallflower type way. Our attempt at a fire was useless and we instead chose to lay on our sleeping bags, and put the radio on. It must have been about 10 years old and we had found it a few months earlier in an old abandoned building (one of many that we loved exploring), but it still somehow worked. It was this dusty, chunky old thing and as I laid with my boyfriend at the time by my side and surrounded by my friends all laying on a giant make shift bed of sleeping bags, on came Boy Meets Girl - Waiting for a Star. It's probably the cheesiest song to go with a cheesy memory. In the middle of the night one of my friends woke up certain that he saw a fox trying to steal our gummy bears, and considering where we were, this was probably likely...maybe not after gummy bears though! We woke up around 6am, perhaps even earlier, to the hottest and brightest sun with a little bit of sunburn, and sweets melted to us, with dew on the grass and also all over us (that tent would have come in handy!). We packed up our soggy sleeping bags and headed back up across the school fields to start another lazy day of our youth.

It's nothing spectacular, but even years later it's a simple memory that reminds me of an amazing year. And it also reminds me of how simple life is when you're a kid, and no matter how dramatic you think your life is, no matter how many boys you think 'break your heart', it's actually a lot easier then when you get a few years older. I'm currently still a teenager and I know I've got a lot more years to tackle before I've really experienced anything tough, but I don't make things seem half as dramatic as they seemed when I was 14. And thankfully, I don't express myself quite so much through bright jeans and dodgy make up.

What's the happiest memory of your life?

This post is part of my 30 Day Writing Challenge, to see the list, click here.