The Damning Evidence of My Youth

Last night, I time traveled to my high school years. I realize that I don't actually need a time travelling machine nor the ability to journey through the ages (although I really wish I could!) in order to find out the sort of person I was and the thoughts that occupied my mind half a decade ago. All you need is the damning evidence of an abandon teenage blog that you once used to pour out the whole of your turbulent youth into.

What I gathered about my 17 year old self:

• Friendships were the only cause I lived for. I placed so much on importance on some of the friends of my youth that I would expect the same sort of reciprocation in return. I rationalized the sort of friendships I had and denied that most were nothing of substance, merely built on gossip and slander of others. I thought that by sticking to a little clique, I was secured in our bonds, perhaps a blush of pride thinking that I was better than the rest because I had a dynamic set of people around me that I could identify as my friends. 
• I thought I knew what love was because I was a hopeless romantic.Because I thought that when someone flirts with me, it means that they genuinely liked me. No hidden agendas. Because I thought that by losing my innocence to someone who claimed to love me, meant that I loved him too. Because I wouldn't know what was to come after.
• I was stupidly active in an entity of faith only to realize that it was fallacious 
• Typical body image issue. Thank God I don't suffer from this anymore. 
• I was a proud prude. What a hypocrite for someone who was dealing with a lot of issues regarding my sexuality. 

The incriminatory list of the vices of my youth is countless. Like any youth, I was and still  am finding myself, exploring, experimenting, learning and making mistakes.

It's safe to say that I have come to terms with the person I was back then and I know it was a matter of maturing and growing up. Now, all these make up a funny story to tell in the future. 

So do yourself a favor. Look to past, laugh, and don't look back. If there is something that needs to be mended, a broken friendship that needs closure, a hurt that was suppressed so deep that you are numb to it, people in your life that are no longer with you to journey through life, accept that things were different, be honest with yourself, forgive. 

With Love,

Rachel