Life for me as a kid I had one focus: making friends. I didn’t realize it then but looking back at it, that really seemed to be the case. The friends I made growing up I had just one feeling every time we would hang out, and that was happiness. Although I didn’t have many friends, my parents did, and their friends had kids of their own. All these other kids were right around the same age as me and we hung out often. This is one of those situations where you would consider them family-friends. Even though we weren’t related, we still considered each other family.
Teenage Years
One of the first major turning points in my life happened during my high school years. But it wasn’t just one specific thing, it was many things that accumulated. New friendships, my love for cars skyrocketed, and of course, my first high school girlfriend. “Snuggly Bear.” I never called her that, just what she referred to herself in the letters we would write each other. Anyone else remember that? Letters! Seriously, when was the last time you wrote a letter to someone? I write maybe one letter a year.
Anyway, a lot of the friends that I also made, we had so much in common. Things like playing sports, video games, and sometimes we would rent a movie that was more horror-esque and pick characters in them who we would claim as ourselves and see who makes it out alive at the end. Also, another thing with horror-type video games, we would rent them and see how far we can get before having to return them. From what I remember, I was typically the one playing the game while my friends would watch. They were more interested in the viewing aspect while giving me options and observing the gameplay, all while I had to make whatever choices that doesn’t lead to death.
Even though I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 18, that didn’t stop me from being around cars. My older brother was a great example of that. During the weekends, when he would be working on his car in the garage, the moment I heard tools and other mechanical noises, I would pretty much run out to observe. I feel like the reason I did this was to see if I could learn from anything my brother does. I would ask him about what he would be working on or what modifications he would be doing, while still trying not to bother him too much. At least up until the point when I would have my own car to work on. In these early days, we only had 2 Fast & Furious movies out and during this time I could definitely say that I admired Paul Walker’s taste in cars. To this day, I still can’t afford the cars he drove in the movies, which led me to get the next closest thing… affordably.
With all these things that I mentioned and how great they sounded, maybe you’re wondering where the turning point comes in. Because from what we know, turning points are tendencies for conflict. When it came to school, my education was subpar. Bad grades can only lead you so far in life… or so they say. It helps, but a lot of experience with life in general can open up a lot of opportunities. With my grades not doing so great, my relationship with my friends became a bit bumpy as well. At this time, as much as I loved having friends, I never considered what would happen when we all started to get comfortable around each other.
What I mean by this isn’t just about farting in each other’s faces and seeing who beats who to the punch of saying, “doorknob or safety”, followed by running into the wall trying to avoid getting hit, but welcoming one another in like family. And from my experience with family, we do have tendencies to bicker and poke fun, but when it happened to me with my friends, I took it out of context. I thought maybe they were just making fun of me because of how easy I was to make fun of. And maybe that’s at least somewhat true, but my innocence was sort of taken from me. This meant as we got older, we start getting wiser and more mature… I would put an asterisk on both of those. At least when it comes being a teenage boy, we seemed to be incredibly immature.
After only a short time dating my girlfriend, she would break things off with me. Funny thing, she thought that I was going to break up with her which wasn’t true. But it happened and we talked about trying to get back together which we never did. So, no more Snuggly Bear for me. As I tried to move on, I did put myself out there with other girls. At the time, it seemed like it was preferred that as teenagers, you would rather hangout as a group while getting to know each other better before finding yourselves into a one-on-one situation, which was what I was trying to do. The girls that I asked out said yes and agreed to meet with me only to not show up and I would get stood up, multiple times, multiple girls. Since then, I just been afraid to ask anyone else out for the remainder of my high school career. And so, we move on…
My Perspective
Depending on how long ago since you’ve been a teenager, obviously, you’ve changed and have grown from that person you once were. The parts of you that you didn’t like, you no longer did that. Unless you are living in the past and only want to stay that way, but life doesn’t really work like that. Yes, you can keep certain aspects of your younger self with you. But the biggest takeaway from this in my opinion, is any situation that we find ourselves in, despite how we react to it and how it changes us… that defines who we are. Maybe not completely, but easily when it comes to certain aspects about us.
If I was able to go back and give any advice to my younger self, I would tell myself, “Don’t be so emotional. Learn to relax a bit. People are going to talk and you can either shrug it off or just do what you are going to develop later in your 20s: self deprecation. Trust me, it works! I know you wear your emotions on your sleeve but you’re a great kid… also, quit trying to be right all the time! There’s so much greatness in you and you don’t even know it yet, but you have to figure that out on your own. You can’t be afraid to learn something new. And one last thing: education is important. I know you don’t like it and a good amount of this stuff might not be useful in the future. But a lot of it is… that and you could also use it for trivia night. Did you know there are over 1400 different types of cheese in France?! Anyway, I should get going. One last thing, don’t tell anyone about this and the whole thing about time travel stuff.”
My Life Experience 