Would You Go Back?

Watching "Napoleon Dynamite" stirred up some old memories about my awkward teenage past. The time machine got me to thinking: If I could go back, knowing what I know now, would I do it all over again?

Hell NO.

I want this on the record: I NEVER, EVER, EVER want to be a teenager again. It was a harrowing experience, and it lasted for years. It's amazing I survived it. It was worse than my wedding, and I have vowed to never have another wedding again, even if the groom is still Favorite Husband.

In my early twenties, I was straining at a feeling of-- well, there's no other way to describe it but "immaturity". I was acutely aware of how immature I was, and I wished that I could age ten years so that I could get the maturity I desperately needed to draw on in order to react in an adult manner to the situation I was in. How much more palpable was the need for maturity when I was a teenager! I yearned with all my soul to be able to do the mature thing. And yet, if I were to bring what maturity I now possess back to my teenage self, it would do no good, because all the others around me would still be their teenage selves. I would only stand out more than I already did-- I would not only be nerdy, skinny, and ill-dressed, I would be oddly mature on top of it all. They would be standing in line to make my life a living hell, even worse than their mere insensitivity had made my previous teenage life.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind going back to September 2003, after I'd lost all that weight and before I'd gained it all back.