Going Back in Time

If You Knew then What you know now what would you do different?

Recently I got to be a part of what we call project graduation. For those of you who never heard of it, it is a party that the community throws for high school graduates to have something fun to do that night. It is a lock in with plenty of games, prizes, activities and food.

For the last four years Sue (the owner of the Jazzercise center I work at) has been going to this event to perform jazzercise routines for the graduates to follow. It’s another activity along withkaraoke that seems to be a hit and she asked me if I wanted to participate this year and I said yes.

I was really excited to be a part of this because the year that project graduation began was the year I graduated from high school. I was not only excited about seeing the students from the school I graduated from but I felt it would be historic for me like going back in time.

When I looked at those kids I instantly went back to my high school years and I could hardly believe that I was ever that age.  As a matter of fact project graduation was a blur to me.  I could not remember anything about it but winning a prize and thinking to myself that I don’t usually win anything.

Being in school was so hard for me because of the struggle with my sexuality. I didn’t have the opportunity to have relationships and break ups like my friends and was often made fun of because of my femininity. There were parts of school that I enjoyed like deciding what cute outfit I was going to wear, socializing with my friends, and looking at the boys that I thought were so cute.

College was never an option for me because I knew I was going to beauty school so I guess when high school was over I felt a bit lost.

For years I dreamed of being an adult and making my own decisions not realizing how difficult that would be. In school there was a schedule but not in the real world. I could not help wondering about the future of those new graduates and how they would be able to manage going to the next level in life.

What was most profound to me is that I realized that I would never want to go back in time unless I could know what I know now.

The decisions we make or have made were based on what tools or knowledge we had to work with at that time.

If we were actually able to go back in time without our current knowledge we would likely repeat the same path.

I am learning how to leave the past in the past and take what I know now to make a better present.

The future will take care of itself so stop thinking about the mistakes of your past and wishing that you could change them because you can’t.

What you can do is squeeze all of the lessons out of those mistakes and do your best not to repeat them.

Life is very consistent in the lessons it presents although sometimes it comes dressed differently it always gives a chance for you to make a different choice and to learn something new.

If you knew then what you know now..what would you do differently? Would you change anything in your life? Do you have old decisions that you’ve made that have haunted you.  Have there been things in your past you’ve had to learn to make peace with? If So how did you do it?  If you could change one thing about you what would it be?