What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?

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This should be an easy one to answer. I’m sure everybody knows by now that the worst period of my life was my teenage years. I keep writing different posts about it and I wrote numerous entries about it when I was going through my five year phase of believing my ex was still relevant when she wasn’t. These days so much has changed and that feels like it was decades ago, (but this is probably because it was.) To be precise it was about two decades ago. If anybody can believe it, nearly 20 years passed after we had any contact with each other before I truly realized she was gone. I had been stuck in a time freeze for the last twenty years where I felt she was influencing every part of my life since we actually parted ways. In those 20 years, I could hear what everybody was saying to me, (that she was gone, that I would never see her again, that she was just a girl I went out with for five months,) ETC but I chose to believe that she was still around and harassing me. I acted on those beliefs and it caused me nothing but pain which lasted until I was well into my 20’s and even shows up at certain points in the present day. One thing I can remember was numerous people in my life telling me hundreds of times until they were blue in the face that I should never have another girlfriend as they feared it would only get worse for me as I got older if I had one and things didn’t work out. They even asked me why I had to meet her in the first place. This is a question that I ask myself in the present day. I often wonder how my life would have been up to this point if I never met her at all. I can honestly say that it would have been much better. 

To answer this question, I would have to say that if I knew that love would have caused me as much pain as it did, I would never have accepted her offer to go out with me. It sounds horrible to think about but it’s true. Maybe she should have been quiet and held in her true feelings. It might have made things a lot easier on both of us. Now that I’ve calmed down significantly since then, the question has been asked by many people of whether or not I would ever attempt to have another girlfriend. My answer has gone back and forth between yes and no. At some points, I say no emphatically. This is particularly when the horror has been relived inside my brain I know I would never want any part of a relationship again. However, other times I feel like it may be a possibility as I start to realize that I still have it in me to love again. As it stands now though, my answer is a complete no. This is because I realize how much closer mom and I are now as opposed to how much we argued back then, (she had a major part in the problems that lead to us breaking up which caused a lot of hostility between us,) and I want to keep it that way. Also, I tend to sometimes experience minor scenarios in my head which mirror the problems I had back then. These scenarios reflect the present day and I get angry in the present day even though they are not relevant anymore. I fear that if this keeps up, I could end up in jail or worse given my now advanced age. 

However, something I would tell my younger self to avoid pain in my teenage years would have been something like this. I will use the name Jeff in my quote as my first name is Jeff.

“Jeff, is love really worth it? You need to stop and think about the long term consequences from what’s about to happen even though it looks good now. Your mother loves you now but soon enough you will have problems with your girlfriend that will eventually cause even bigger problems with your mother. You will unfortunately waste half of your 20’s dealing with the aftermath. It’s not too late to stop now…..”

Assuming I still don’t listen and decide to go through with everything the way I did in real time which results in the same sequence of events occurring up to this point, I would then say this to my present day self.

“FOR GOD SAKE JEFF. DO NOT TRY THAT AGAIN. YOU HAVE TOO MUCH GOING FOR YOU AND IF YOU WERE EVER TO LOSE THAT, IT COULD BE PERMANENT. THINGS ARE NOT LIKE THEY WERE WHEN YOU WERE A TEENAGER. YOU’RE MUCH OLDER NOW SO THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS WILL BE VERY SEVERE AND GOOD LUCK GETTING YOUR MOTHER BACK IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES. DO YOURSELF AND EVERYBODY ELSE A FAVOUR AND JUST STAY SINGLE! IT’S MUCH BETTER THAT WAY!”

The capital letters are meant to give the impression of me screaming at myself. However, to answer the question, I would basically just aspire to never have had a girlfriend in the first place. Love is not for everyone. There is much more to life.

By Jefferson Bert