Why I Wish I Had the Elevate Festival When I Was Younger

Being a tween is a strange kind of in-between. You are old enough to notice everything and not old enough to know what to do with it. You notice how other girls look, and how confident they seem. Who is included and who isn’t. What people say about you, and what they don’t say. You notice your body changing, your friendships shifting, and sometimes the way you talk to your parents changing. And underneath all of it, you are still working out who you actually are.

I remember how easy it was to spiral and get caught up in what other people thought about me. A small disagreement with a friend could feel like the sky was falling. One offhand comment could stay with me for days. I compared myself to other people constantly without ever noticing I was doing it. Some days I felt confident within myself, and some days I questioned everything, and this uncertainty sometimes made me feel alone.

Growing up has always been confusing. But I think girls now are doing it with an audience. Social media means there is always someone to measure yourself against: someone who looks happier and prettier and like she is having more fun. Even though what they post is only their best few seconds of the week, when girls expose themselves to that content, it's so easy to feel left behind or not happy enough.

Then there are friendships, which at that age can feel like the whole world. Groups re-form. People drift. Someone you were inseparable from one year ago can feel like a stranger the next. You are learning to handle jealousy, exclusion and disappointment, often for the first time, and usually with no idea that anyone else is finding it just as hard too.

Home isn't always the obvious place to take it either. You start pulling away from your parents at exactly the age you might need them most. And even if you wanted to explain it, you often don't know what it is you're explaining.

That is what I most wish I had understood earlier. So much of what I thought was uniquely wrong with me was just an ordinary part of growing up. I never found a way to say any of it out loud, so it just spiralled in my head.

I wish I had known that self-doubt didn't mean I wasn’t good enough. That a friendship falling apart didn’t mean I was unlikeable. That confidence is not walking into a room without nerves. Often it is about being willing to say what you think, ask the question, try the thing, or admit you need help.

I also wish there had been more places where girls could say all of this out loud. School teaches us a lot, but they don’t teach us how to approach our lives during such a huge period of change and confusion. How do you stop comparing yourself to everyone? How do you know if a friendship is a good one? How do you trust your own voice when you are still working out what it sounds like?

Those conversations are easier with girls your own age, somewhere that is not school, where what you say will not follow you around on Monday. Which is why I wish something like the Elevate Festival had existed when I was younger.

It gives girls a space of their own during the years when almost everything is changing. They have time to try things they would never normally try, to hear from people who remember exactly what this feels like, and to discover how much of what is going on in their heads is actually going on in everyone else’s heads too. There are talks and activities, from graffiti art to sessions on mental health and body image, girls will come away feeling less alone.

Looking back on my tween and early teen years, if I had been given the opportunity to go to the Elevate festival, I know it wouldn’t have magically solved everything. I would not have immediately stopped comparing myself to other people, and friendships would still have gone wrong. But I might have understood myself a little sooner, and trusted my own voice a little earlier. I might have learned how to be more vulnerable and open. And on the days when it felt really lonely, I might have known that thousands of other girls were also working out the same thing.