10 Essential Life Lessons I Learned From Being A Teenage Goth

...NOT just how to apply killer winged eyeliner (although I admit, that was a true benefit)

Yesterday was World Goth Day, and when I posted this blurry old webcam photo of myself from 1997, I was blown away by the response. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who spent their youth listening to The Cure, writing vampire poetry, and stomping around in New Rock combat boots!

It got me thinking about the deeper impact those years had on me, and how that unapologetic teen goth energy lives within me! So here it is, baby: 10 lessons I learned (in fishnets) that shaped my entire life.

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1. It’s your job to create the world you want to live in.

I cannot overstate how isolated and unusual New Zealand is. This is a country with more sheep than people (yes, still!), where rugby is the subject du jour, where America — the epicenter of alternative culture — seemed like a million miles away. Even today, it boggles my mind when my American friends tell me about everything that was instantly available to them in their teenage years.

Man, I had to really work to create a world that felt good to me!

And so I did: I would spend hundreds of dollars ordering zines, maintaining penpals, and buying used records. I created websites, wrote online journals, obsessively researched music, read as many books as I could get my hands on, watched weird cult movies, made friends, and went dancing in my New Rock boots… Even my AIM away messages were a little step in curating my own universe.

Once I discovered the thrill of creating my own reality, I never stopped! And while my tastes have changed (a lot), the joy of intentional curation remains.

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2. Being different is a blessing, not a liability.

Admittedly, sometimes when people tell me they’re scared to be different or to stand out in some way, I find it hard to relate to them… Because my deep-seated belief is that sameness is death!

I’m so thankful to have been a teenage goth because it helped me see that being different wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing: a way of attracting like-minded people, and not having to sacrifice your essence to have friends. As an adult, I’ve never felt the urge to shrink to fit in, or to sit at a table of people I don’t connect with… Because I know that there are people who I’ll really hit it off with, just around the corner.

My mind boggles when I watch people fitting into these cookie-cutter molds — this country club, Ivy League, “what will the neighbors think?” kind of stuff — because it’s clear to me that everyone is just playing a role and none of them are authentically happy.

I will always choose to be myself rather than jostle for social approval. Thank fucking God.

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3. You’re not a weirdo, you just haven’t found your people yet.

It would have been easy for me to look around my Christian, all girls' high school and think I was a freak of nature. I could have let that feeling of separateness drive me into conformity, and try to blend in with the girls I went to school with.