Sunday Scribblings #86 — Misspent (aka Frittered) Youth

I do prefer the word frittered to misspent. I sometimes stutter and the word misspent just won’t roll off my tongue.

So. Did I fritter away my youth? I really think so. I have to own up to a few good chunks of frittering. Making the right decisions was not something I did easily.

The facts:

1. My friends were a partying bunch. Underage drinking but no drugs, thankfully. I suppose I could have tried being friends with kids farther up the food chain, but it was easier to just coast along with the friends that I had. I would consider that frittering.
2. I took very careful aim and shot myself in the foot repeatedly in school. Activities that would have been good for my self esteem were largely ignored by me, usually for some boy or other. Not just frittering — brainless frittering.
3. I settled for a high school diploma and did not pursue higher education. Major frittering accomplished for sure.
4. I married the first guy who asked me in order to escape my home situation. Bad choice topped off by even more bad choices, because I stayed with him for 20 years. A glittering frittering achievement. (Oooo, poetry!!)

Can you hear the violins? Oh, the drama!!

You can only work with what you have and in my defense, I had a lot of strikes against me. Home was not the sanctuary that it should be, and school was difficult to say the least. I was your garden variety of female teenage hormones tied up with zero self esteem and no role models to look up to.

Do you believe that the end justifies the means? Of course I made bad decisions. Most teenagers do and I do regret a few. I wanted friends around me to make me feel safe so I drifted when it was certainly possible that I could have worked harder and improved my life. I was lucky that I didn’t make any decisions that could have done me bodily harm. (Someday I will post a couple of stories of very near misses that I was lucky enough to dodge.) I had a couple of friends in high school that weren’t that lucky.

And I DO like who I am now. The journey to get here wasn’t so great but without all that
wreckage following me around, I don’t know what kind of person I would be. Looking back now and whining over what might have been but for better choices would clearly be frittering my time away. I prefer to look at it, reflect upon it all briefly, then put it all away and have a nice hot, cup of coffee. Mmmm.

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