Confessions To My Teenage Self

As I think back to my teenage years and what the difference in every aspect of my life has changed from then until now I feel that I owe an apology to my teenage self. As strange as it would seem to apology to your younger self, I feel that it is owed simply because I feel I let her down. So as I start this confession/apology, I will be directing my statement from me to her.

At this time I see you being 17 years old, in high school just into your junior year. This was at a time where you were, for the most part, pretty happy. You just got into a relationship with someone that you really cared about and was in love with and despite your young age, a fairly serious relationship. But I know things didn’t work out. For my part in that I am sorry.

Because I know I did things to jeopardize that happiness and allowed things that were done to you to jeopardize that happiness. You were also in a prime time to have some kind of ambition to do something with your life. And I failed in that as well. We never had any ambition to be anything. There was absolutely nothing that we wanted to do with our lives as far as career. You could not figure out why. I still can’t and I’m much older now. For that I am sorry.

At the beginning of your junior year, your self-esteem was higher than it had ever been and ever would be. Even before the relationship, you held your head higher and felt like you could even be (dare I say)… pretty. But I know it didn’t last long and for that I am sorry. I let your self-image be defined by what other people thought and what other people said and never about what I really thought and said to yourself. I used their words to describe you, not yours. It didn’t matter if it came from family, friends or complete strangers; I let them dictate how I saw you. For that I am sorry.

Never did you imagine how far off track I would take you. Never did you even think that the person you thought you saw in the mirror every day would end up actually looking like who you saw in the mirror every day. And never could you imagine that I would wish I looked like you. For that I am sorry.

It hurts so much to say that I can’t even control the tears coming down my face. I look at pictures of you and can’t fathom why you thought anything was wrong with you. I mean really wrong with you. Not what others thought/said because who cares about them but what you really thought. Than I remember that it’s because I cared what people thought, especially those that I cared about and loved. It’s not their fault they had opinions and voiced them at you but that I believed their opinions were “facts”. That it was a “fact” that you were too fat to be accepted. It was a “fact” that you were not pretty enough to be accepted. That it was a “fact” that you were not smart enough to be accepted. I allowed that to consume your self-esteem and confidence until there was nothing left but their opinions of you. And with that lack of self-esteem and confidence I ended up turning you into someone who was insecure, paranoid and scared. For that I am so sorry.

And those things I thought were “facts” back then, they were not facts. But because of my insecurity, paranoia and fear, those “facts” became reality that I have had to face today, your future. The future you never thought was there for you has become reality and it’s a reality that I have failed you. I failed you in your being happy, healthy and successful. For that I am sorry.

As you are there in your life dealing with; teenage issues, going to school, doing homework, having fun with friends, spending time with your boyfriend, I look there and see that it really was the happiest you have been. I wish I could have done better for you. I wish I could have made it so 5 years or 10 years from then you would be at your happiest. I wish I could have done better to make it so that at this moment as I’m writing this, we would be at our happiest. For that I am sorry.

The future you will face, even in the next couple of years from then, will be something of extreme emotional pain and mental anguish. And though a majority of it centers on your relationship and the ups and downs of it, it also had to do with the failures that I have made in your future. I allowed the relationship to supersede family, friendships, schooling and most egregiously, God. I put your boyfriend before them all and that gave him carte blanche to hurt you in ways that only God, he, my mother and a therapist knows. The damage became even more so when everyone saw you as an evil bitch because I could not hold the pain in and felt safer to let it out around people as opposed to letting it be private. For that I am sorry.

You couldn’t know that. You couldn’t even figure out how that relationship and the pain and volatile actions from he and I did to each other, could affect you so that I chose to remain alone after it was over. The damage was too severe mentally and emotionally to overcome. I considered myself damaged goods and not fit for anyone, even more so now after everything. For that I am sorry.

You dreamt of having a family of your own. Even thinking that he would be the one to have it with but I failed in that because I decided to go against your instincts from the beginning. I was looking for someone who wouldn’t look at you like other guys did; ugly, fat and disgusting. But in the end he was like everyone else because I behaved in a way that accepted being ugly, fat and disgusting. I should not have behaved that way and allow other people’s opinions to become what I accepted you were and I failed you in that. For that I am sorry.

You deserved better. You deserved happiness, love, success, a family, dreams come true but I decided to choose the opposite. I overrode what God intended for you. I allowed everything else over God. If I had learned back then to put God first, always first, than maybe I could have changed your future. The loss of that future, along with the other losses along the way will make it so that I don’t know how and even if I can bounce back. For that I am sorry.

You haven’t experienced those losses yet and I wish I could really tell you so that it can change something. I’d tell you to spend more time with Grandpa Collis and Nana. Listen to them, talk to them. Ask about their lives and experiences. Call them, write them and see them more because when they are gone, that physical earthly time with them will be gone as well and it’ll hurt more than anything else you have experienced up to that point.

I’d tell you to love and appreciate the cats; Tiger, Dusty and Bud more. Though the special connection with Dusty, though he is in heaven now, is still as strong today as it was when he was alive I wish there was more of a connection with you and him. To just enjoy them, love and take care of them more. Be there for them more than I was. Play with them more and just be in their presence because it really was therapeutic during the hardest times you’ve faced, they were there for you. Especially Dusty, he just knew when I was hurting, whether emotionally or physically and he comforted you during those times until he passed away.

I’d tell you to not put someone first who put you last. To not put you last when you should be, other than God, first. To concentrate more on school and figure out where you can really excel at. Write more, journal more. Write down anything and everything that comes to you. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to no one else but you, write it down and let it out.

I’d tell you to take care of yourself. I always pushed it away and didn’t want to hear anyone talk to you about eating right and exercising but I know that if my future self would’ve come to me looking like how I do now and tell me to take better care of my health, I’m sure I would’ve listened.

I’d tell you to not try to take your own life multiple times. Nothing that I had gone through at that time was worth you trying to stop living. No one was worth trying to end your life, no matter how much you thought you loved him and how much it hurt loving him, not worth it. There was no remorse in him for what happened with you both. He went on with his life and lost no sleep over the things he’d done and to this day, I have to forgive myself for allowing him to do those things to you and also forgive myself for what I did to him. Though some of things that were done by him were not what I need to get into, he was not a bad person. We were kids and not old enough to be in a relationship that was as serious to the degree that it was.

I’d also tell you to stop the negative tape in your mind that you are; fat, ugly, disgusting and stupid. I’d tell you, my 17 year old self, that you are not fat, ugly and disgusting. You’re a beautiful, intelligent, honest person and deserve to be respected especially by those who are supposed to love you but most especially by me. I was supposed to love and respect you and I failed you. For that I am so sorry.

So I leave you with this; that this confession, though directed at my young self, is more of an apology to myself. I sabotaged myself because I believed that other people’s opinions meant that they were right and I had no hope in ever being accepted by any standards. I settled for far less and did a lot of damage that now cannot be repaired as it is now beyond repair. I just pray no one else does the same to themselves because just existing in life is not living a life.