the chronicles of caitlin

"these are my hands, these are my faults, these are my nasty little thoughts, i wrote them down for you to contemplate at a later date..." --stroke 9

i used to keep a journal.  i received my first real journal, like the first one i actually wrote in frequently, the one i wrote in until it was full, from my sister michelle when i was maybe 12.  i think mormons are into journaling for the same reason they’re into geneology– writing in a journal is considered keeping a personal history that your descendents can read and learn about you and your life, the times you lived in.  the problem is this: the crap i wrote about at that age (12-17) is useless.  honestly, it’s horribly embarrassing.  i’ve gone back to read old entries and i just want to reach back into time and punch my young self in the face.

i was so stupid… i didn’t have a clue about what’s important.  i would devote pages and pages to the d-bag boyfriend i thought i was so in love with from age 14 until the end of the journals.  i didn’t manage to get that a-hole out of my life until i was 20 years old.  god, that’s so embarrassing.  i wish i would have listened to my parents, to my mom specifically, and not wasted my youth being retarded over that guy.  in the end, he left me.  well, i left him, but wanted to get back together, but he met someone else and didn’t let me back.  that ate away at my soul for months– it was my main reason behind going to france for that study abroad program.  so, in a lot of ways he did me the biggest favor anybody could have, one i didn’t have in me to grant myself.

ugh.

i know the point of making mistakes is to learn from them, but i still find it painful to look back on all the time i spent toiling over him when i could have been with my friends or my family.  i would have taken the s.a.t.’s and applied to colleges if i hadn’t thought me and the d-bag were gonna live happily ever after together after i finished high school.  i could be a college graduate right now if it hadn’t been for him.  but those few months in paris changed my life in a lot of important ways and i wouldn’t have had the desire to go if i hadn’t been trying to run from something.  oh, well.  i know “time spent wishing is time wasted.”  i guess i wonder what my life would be like now if i had never met him or if had realized what he was sooner.  the mistakes i made with him and for him and over him brought me to where i am now, so would i change anything?

i’m happy with the boyfriend and i’m happy i went to paris.   but i do still wish i was done with college already.  i feel like i’m just adrift– nothing changes.  people who haven’t seen me in years will ask “where are you working?” “where do you live?” and i’m like, well, i still have the same job i had in high school and i still live at home with the ‘rents.  does that make me super lame or what?  should i feel like a huge underachiever?

so i guess this is my new journal.  i just hope that someday i can look back at these years of my life and feel pride or gladness or like it was time well spent.  i don’t want to wish i could go back in time just to slap my younger self silly.

do you have any regrets?