At 16, when I told my mother I was in love with my first boyfriend, she scoffed at me. Her pitying look did nothing but enrage me and propelled me to distance myself further from her, burying myself headfirst into my teen angst. I know now that my mother’s reaction came from the outcome of her own teenage love affairs and her desire for me to focus on my dreams and aspirations instead of some boy. The inner lives of teenagers have always been of interest in our society, but teenage love affairs are often genuinely heartbreaking to the adolescents inside them.
As a smack-dab-in-the-middle millennial, I gravitated toward teen romance flicks like Clueless, She’s All That, and Crazy/Beautiful. I admired Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) chic wardrobe and was enthralled with the chaos of Nicole’s (Kirsten Dunst) mental anguish. But none of that felt familiar or even real to me. These glamorous California teens were a world away from the South Side of Chicago. There were a few films like A Walk to Remember and Save the Last Dance that felt more tangible to my experiences. Like Mandy Moore’s character in the 2002 Adam Shakman film, my mother began battling cancer when I was 18, succumbing to the disease when I was 20.
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