The Reoccurring Teenager

I beginning to think that we all have this reoccurring teenager within us.  I’m sitting here after a meditating on the phase, “Three things cannot be hidden, the sun the moon and the truth”( I’m also fond of “You only lose that which you cling to”) and I have been reflecting on how I feel.  I saw my youngest sister married today, I have been bombarded by emotional tidal waves and I have stayed steadily swimming towards the shore.  There were moments of course where I felt I might drown, where I might be pulled into the darkness of the deepest parts of the ocean, but somehow, I did not succumb to those powerful forces.

Finally, I emerged from this voyage, beaten and battered but still moving forward because I must.  Weddings are always emotional, add any family dynamic and it’s twice so, add in coming home again, and it’s thrice so, and so on.  So here you are at an event that inevitably most have to attend, and inevitably that most will feel the stirring of this teenager inside, and unless you stop for a moment to think on it, you might miss the little trouble maker.  

Now it is possible that as a teenager you were a peach, an untroubled child who was able to stay pretty put together and in those cases you have little to worry about, but in the other cases, the ones I have seen with friends and myself those years will tumultuous and traumatic and ripe with all sorts of chaotic and distressing feelings.  Anger, resentment, abandonment, and bitterness are just a few feelings that the teenager within harbors and guards, and if you are not careful that inner teenager will take over for unspecified periods of time, it is for this reason that you must be aware.

It’s actually quite natural, you feel like you are drowning into the darkness and the time in your life that you most felt that was as a teenager, and so you that teenager found an opening a way to emerge, and before you can realize it you want to let the waters take you, or you want to run away, or you are so angry you want to shut everyone out.  Can you remember as a teenager how many people in your life you were angry with, it’s exhausting, but so easy to fall prey to the reoccurring teenager who waits for the right moment to pop back up and say hello to the world.

I long for a beautiful day at the cemetery where I can visit my loved ones and sleep beside them because it brings me peace, and because I have always felt the dead understand me far more than the living can, but I have felt this way since I was a teenager.  This behavior while odd to some is not considered bad, so I let the teenager within have this one,  but be careful, teenagers are give an inch take a mile by their nature.  You could concede to something small and end up fueling the fire, and angry at everyone, angry at parents for abandoning you or neglecting you, angry at family for not being there, angry at everyone for not protecting you and angry at yourself for being any kind of victim, this is the danger of the reoccurring teenager, all these issues easily come to the surface, and you might say “well if they are there you didn’t really deal with them.”  Or “you just need to move on”  but the sad reality is, our teenage years are the years where we find ourselves. 

We are taught and learn what our parents have to offer by the age of 13 (probably younger now) and from that point forward we are trying to figure out who we are.  So this teenager ingrained in us, it is part of us, it is a footprint of what happened to help us find ourselves.  For some it is a light footprint, for others a deep footprint, for some it is a reminder of what to do, for others a reminder of what not to do.  We cannot simply “get over” our teenage self, we have to get to know our teenage self, we have to be aware of it, and most importantly we have to stop denying it is there.  We have to honestly look at ourselves and identify what is the reoccurring teenager and what is the adult, and there may be times where it is appropriate to be both, there may be times were you need to grab a hold of the stubborn, hurt, angry and confused teenager and be firm enough not to go that route. 

I was always creative, as a teenager I knew what I wanted, but the adults said oh no that can’t be, be realistic, that was the worse advice ever!  I say do what you love! That reoccurring teenager is much happier when you are true to yourself, after all, that is what being a teenager is all about, it is about learning who you are.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m successful in what I have done, but I find my life lacking, and I know it is because I got away from who I was and am, and the further away I was the more that teenager reoccurred, I wanted to run-away, hide, push everyone away, but I wanted that because I had lost myself and my reoccurring teenager knew that, and knew it was the job of the teenager to find oneself.  So be aware, when you lose control, or lose yourself and you feel that reoccurring teenager boiling up inside, you might have lost yourself and it might be time find yourself again. 

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