May
5
What Would You Tell Your __Teen Old Self?
Posted by: sammy | May 5, 2011 | 2 Comments
I was thinking today, about hindsight and how about it’s always apparently 20/20. Then I got to thinking, and wondered, if I travelled back in time… what would I tell my 14 year old self?
First and for most, I’d tell myself it gets better. Way better. That the feelings you’re feeling right now wont last forever, and the thoughts you are having wont either. The situation you are in is fixable and that you’re friends are flexible. I’d tell myself that I know it’s hard, and that sometimes life wasn’t always the easiest during this time, but hurting yourself isn’t the answer. I’d tell myself that I should have waited to drink – that I had and still have my entire life a head of me. If I could go back to when I was 14, I would tell myself that I should have taken time to grow up slower to enjoy my innocence and naivety. I would tell myself that maybe dying your hair purple was not the best idea, that My Chemical Romance isn’t the best bad in the world and that I should just accept that at some point in the next five years I’d grow to love talk radio and green tea.
I would tell my fourteen year old self that I should love and be proud of who I am, personality wise and culturally. I spent so much time at that age trying to pretend that I wasn’t Metis, or pretending that yeah I really was a bad ass that snuck out and I liked lying to my parents. I would tell myself that my culture is beautiful and rich and that there is a lot I could learn from it. I would tell myself that even though the people around me were hurtful and racist that I should never be ashamed of who I am. I’d punch the kid that told me that just because I was Metis and so fair that I could have equal benefits of being white and also skrewing the government because I was “also Native”. I would tell myself to talk to someone about everything I was feeling at that age, and about everything I’d went through previously – that bottling up all the shit that happened in my childhood and during highschool was bound to come back and haunt me at some point.
Most importantly, I’d tell my fourteen year old self that life goes on. Even though middle school and higschool are hard, people can be mean and sometimes life seems unfair – time always moves on and you should move on with it. The little things of who said what, who hates who and who is sleeping with who don’t matter in the long run. They are just bumps on a very, very long road.
I think it’s important to reflect on where we have come from, and look to where we are going. But, we should also appreciate where we are because it’s the who we were that shaped what we are now, and it’s the where we are going that will shape who we are later.
xoxo.
Sam.
Comments
2 Comments so far
This made me think of Noah and the Whale’s song “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.” one of my favourites right now. Have a listen. Have a great summer, Sam!
Chaos Theory few. Making one thing better in the past could make other things bad in the future.
I like what Nicole posted about: “Life Goes On”