Recently, a youngster asked me what I miss most from the past. After some thought, I gave him an answer. In truth, except for about two or three things, there’s not much that I miss from back in the day. In fact, I like being thirty-one much more than being fourteen years old.
At fourteen years old, I was still in the swimming club. That summmer, the swimming club had taken its workouts to the outdoor pool. Sounds like fun, but in reality the water was far colder than was usually the case indoors, and every so often, after getting out of the pool, a blast of wind would hit you, leaving you with instant goosebumps. I also distinctly remember getting muscle cramps that summer when swimming. Overall, it wasn’t a great experience, with the trainers parading around the side of the pool like grumpy army sergeants. Hitting the showers was something to look forward to, every single time.
Around that time, I met a girl my own age, who swam in the same lane. We began talking, she was nice enough, and I had enough wits about myself to make the girl laugh, so we decided to go on a date. However, it turns out she only stayed in my city for the summer. She actually lived about fifty kilometres away from me. Looking back, I had no real interest, I just wanted the bragging rights of having a girlfriend. If I had done any introspection, I’d have called off the whole deal.
But we arranged a date and agreed to go to a cinema near where she lived, which, I’ll remind you, was at about fifty kilometres distance from home. My dad kindly enough went along with the whole deal and drove me there. We’d found two movies which seemed worthwhile: a girl movie and a guy movie. At this point I was playing the long game, so I picked the girl movie – The Devil Wears Prada if you care enough to know.
The date was an absolute disaster. Sitting in the cinema seat, I felt like a robot, half trying to enjoy the movie, half trying to figure out the right moves for the situation. What the hell do you say when you’re watching a movie you don’t care about, the volume turned all the way up so you can only say one or two things during the quiet parts of the movie, looking at your watch, seeing the seconds go by, knowing this date is almost over and you haven’t said much beyond, “Good movie, huh? Wow, that was so funny, haha.” The date ended politely enough, but that was the end of that relationship, if you could even call it one.
That about sums up being fourteen, doesn’t it? You have no clue who you are, but you’re desperate to belong, so you try to change yourself into what everyone else wants. You lose yourself for a while, only to find yourself again in the years afterwards. And while I don’t believe that we’re ever done growing our own self-understanding, I now know to listen to myself more than I used to. When my internal voice speaks to me, nowadays, I tend to listen. Because you know what’s worse than making a mistake? Making a mistake, while ignoring that internal voice warning you. Worse than hearing someone else go, “I told ya,” is to hear yourself go, “I told myself!”
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet