I have fallen in love with a squatter

(in a dream that I had)

Ok so we’re in 1994 now! And I turned 13 in 1994, so things are about to get more wonderful and more desperate and more teenagery.

Remember this diary?

It’s the one I used for writing out song lyrics, business planning, devising exercise routines to Madonna albums, and also — as we are about to find out — recording my dreams.

Obviously, we all know that hearing about other people’s dreams is a bore.

BUT, when I was 13, I had this one dream that I loved so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was so annoyed when I woke up from that dream and found myself back in my mundane life that I decided the best way to keep experiencing the dream was to not only write about what happened in my diary, but to also imagine the perfect ending for it.

And honestly — the ending that I devised — it is … eeek.

It’s about LOVE. Because I was obsessed and so SO wanted a boyfriend. And it gets full-on cringe. But it’s also a bit sweet.

I have honestly been in two minds about sharing this (obviously I have decided to as you are reading this!) because it gets … not x-rated … but it goes in that territory — in a very mild and cheesy way. Ok, let’s do it.

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First, the actual dream

This is long and maybe hard to follow, like dreams can be, so a TLDR on the dream itself might go like this:

Me and a friend discover a secret world underneath our houses, which we can access through a ‘trapdoor’ style paving slab from our bedrooms, that leads into a basement — but then under that — daylight, gardens, archways… and there’s a mysterious boy who lives down there in that other world. He’s a squatter! I become quite entranced by him, and all the adults think he’s trouble.

By the way, in real life, neither my house, nor any of the others on my street of 1950s Doncaster council houses, had anything as exotic as a basement.

(Also, I’ve blocked out the names of people mentioned, who were mostly just my neighbours from back then.)

So that write-up meanders a fair bit, and it does the thing that dreams do where places morph into other places and the laws of physics get ignored and all of that — but hopefully you get the idea: I had fallen for a squatter.

However, re-reading it now, the essence of the dream isn’t really there in those words. The way I was kind of buzzing after waking is missing, but now in 2024 I can still recall how I felt — like I had met this person, this Scott, who was interesting and different and independent. He was a couple of years older than me, I think. I remember the very vivid sense that he existed, and that this underground world was real.

It was one of those dreams that stays with you for days, where you can kind of re-conjure the feeling of it, just by thinking about it.

I lived off of that feeling for as long as I could.

Now, this is a big question — but really — what even are dreams??? Magical magical things, for sure.

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We french kissed all the time

SO. Let’s look at the ending I devised for the dream, which as I have hinted veers towards being a bit adult, but in a way that is somehow very… chaste.

Teresa! There I am doing the dirty on my friend, giving her a boyfriend nowhere near as gorgeous as mine!

Slightly evil but it’s my story and ANYTHING can happen. But also I liked to be realistic, which is why I say Scott isn’t allowed in the house when there were no adults around. Very sensible. Considering what’s coming.

This next bit is perhaps my favourite:

Er — how much was that paper round paying???

And this:

How bloody funny is crossing out the ‘french’ of french kiss? BLESS ME.

Ok, here’s what happens next:

Oh more kissing! And falling asleep in each other’s arms!

It’s all quite innocent. Apart from the fact I’m deceiving my mother by having Scott at the house when she’s out for the day.

I do have to wonder what videos we watched — because I only had Grease, Dirty Dancing, The Three Amigos, and Tina Turner Live in Barcelona.

Okay, now it shifts up a level, but just gently. Also there’s more deception going on in terms of lying to my mum, in a very classic teenage way.

A 4-star guest house! When I could have chosen a 5-star one here in my own imagination!

Amazing.

Okay, next and final level of romantically saucy content:

That’s it! Hold hands to the bedroom!

What I love the most, I think, is the blank page that follows — it says so much. I had no idea how to finish that. It’s like a fade-out effect — which is perfect, actually.

‘Jekusy’ is a lovely mis-spell.

Also, it’s very Teresa of me to say, ‘By this time it is 1.00am Saturday’. I really did like recording the time.

Anyway, do you see what I mean, it’s somehow awful and lovely all at once? That was my idea, age 13, of how the perfect relationship would play out.

I don’t know if I can, or should, or even have the authority to keep blessing myself, but BLESS ME.

What did you make of all of that? Would love to hear your thoughts and if it reminded you of any intense dreams or even slightly ‘risky’ fiction you wrote as a teen!

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Zine news

Before I go, I just want to tell you that my latest zine, Places We Used To Hang in the Mid 90s, is now available on Etsy. It’s a nostalgic and autobiographical read about some of the walls, streets, fields and shops that me and my friends used to spend our time in around 1994/1995, when I was about 14 years old. If you were ever a teenager and you like this newsletter you will very likely enjoy it. It’ll be Alright in the 90s podcast called it ‘24 carat nostalgia’ which is true and nice!

Here are some pics — plus a couple of the zine bundles I have on offer right now, if you like this kind of thing. Click here to peruse the full collection.

And just a reminder that this newsletter is free and online for everyone to read, but you can support it either by becoming a free subscriber so you get the emails straight to your inbox and therefore get to read them as soon as they are published, or by taking out a paid subscription for £5 a month / £39 for the year — that’s just if you have the funds and you like what I do here. All types of support appreciated, including comments, likes, shares all of that — it really helps to spread the word. Thank you.

So I will see you next time, when we’ll continue our journey into the 90s and my teenage LAD MAD years.

Thanks for being here,

Teresa x

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