What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?
These younger self questions are a dime a dozen lately. I think we’ve established that if we were able to go back and talk to the teenage version of us, we wouldn’t listen. Maybe I would. I was an introspective youngling. If I encountered myself from the future, I’d analyze that experience to death in my journal. So I probably would listen. But what I would tell young Sarah probably wouldn’t stop her from going through pain. I know what my life is like now. I know what caused me pain when I was young–my narcissistic father constantly yelling at me, teen angst and desperately wanting a serious boyfriend, mental illness that spiraled out of control–but knowing that the pain ends isn’t going to stop me from going through it. The fact that I no longer talk to my father won’t change how he treated me back then. Knowing I meet and fall in love with my soul mate just after graduating high school won’t take away the yearning in my heart for love. And knowing that I heal beautifully from the mental illness that threatened to destroy me won’t stop it from developing and taking over my life in college.
Perhaps knowing that at some point in the future we become the person we always wanted to be will give my younger self some hope. But she’ll still have to go through all that she did because that’s what got her to this point. With suffering comes strength. I wouldn’t be as strong of a middle-aged woman if I hadn’t gone through experiences that caused so much pain as a teenager and early 20-something.
I know a lot now. I know about healing and using my voice and disregarding other people’s thoughts of me. Teenage Sarah knew a lot too. She knew about heartache and anxiety from her father and emotional turmoil from her mentally ill mother. What she knew growing up is what has made me who I am today. There’s no saving her from the pain. I wouldn’t be the same now without it.
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