Time Machine

    If I could take a time machine back to nineteen seventy-nine and meet my fourteen-year-old self, I’m pretty sure I know what I’d tell that handsome young man. I’ve given it a lot of thought as I watch my grandchildren enter into their early teens and I think it’s sage advice to them, even today. I’ll share my advice with you, but first let’s look at today’s modern teen.

    They have technology that far surpasses what I had back then. It doesn’t take much to beat a phone, the television, radio and newspapers. Gossip travels instantaneously over the internet. All of my knowledge came from friends or an encyclopedia, and they have facts at their fingertips with the internet. But technology only matters if it’s trustworthy. Just because it’s on the internet, doesn’t make it true. They have bullies on the internet. I got to face a beat-down from those guys in person. We played “the dozens” in school. They said things about “my momma” that weren’t very true, or sensitive, or kind, just to get a response from me. We learned how to deal with them face to face.

    Kids today get to hear about things that I never did. Sexual orientation, gender choices, gay rights, and trans gendered people were either not an issue, or didn’t exist in my fourteen year-old world. Now, they hear about it daily. As an adult, I find myself having to look most of this stuff up on the internet to try to understand what’s going on in the same world where they hear about this stuff from their friends at school. At that age, I was confused about how I was ever going to kiss a girl. Sounds simpler, but it didn’t feel that way at the time.

     When I was fourteen, I didn’t like myself. I had zero confidence in myself. How could I? I was fat, slow, not good at anything, and girls never gave me a second look. I was outstanding in nothing. I was a bookworm, a nerd. I saw myself as a loser. It took me years to gradually come out of that feeling. And that’s all it was: a feeling. When your body starts changing with adolescence, your brain and body goes a little insane. No one pops into this world with confidence, you earn it with experience. And that takes time. When you’re fourteen, a day lasts forever. Tomorrow never gets here fast enough. Everything good is coming “tomorrow”, too. It’s never right now. Everyone around you has their crap together but you. The feeling that you are the one kid in the world that doesn’t “get it” is real. The feeling that you never get the feeling you want, the body you want, the friends you want and the smarts you want sits on your soul and crushes it. You feel as if you live in a pit of despair.

    No matter the technology, the generation today is really no different from the one I grew up in. The kids have the same confusion, just with a wider range of subjects and issues. People’s nature doesn’t change, just the scenery around us. If I could step out of my time machine and have a short conversation with myself, I think this is what I’d say:

    You have time. Experience life and enjoy it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not perfect just the way you are, because you are. You will grow. Give yourself time to experience life and learn how to make decisions. Don’t take issues too seriously, because they’re not your responsibility yet. Be a kid. Have fun while you have the luxury. The luxury of time. It doesn’t last. Be a bit nutty, silly or outlandish. Just don’t take it too seriously. There’ll be time enough for that, later. Look at this old man in front of you and know that our life has it’s seasons. You are Spring and Summer right now. Revel in it. Live it to it’s fullest.

I think I’d listen, but maybe not. I do know one thing that my teenage self would say:

Shouldn’t you be doing the same thing, Old Man?

And I’d be right.

God bless Ya’ll.