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What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20-Guest Post
By Honey Smith
I’m rapidly approaching 30, and as such it seems that I’m somewhere between LisaQ and Kira in age. As a result of being between “young adult” and what might be considered “true adult” status, I find myself both looking back on my late teens and early twenties and saying, “What was I thinking?” I also looking ahead at what’s to come and setting personal relationship goals based on my past mistakes and successes.
If I’d discovered Baggage Reclaim in my late teens and early twenties, everything that NML says would have applied directly to me…and yet, I don’t know if it would have done any good. I recently wrote a blog on HoneyandLance that was inspired by a reader who e-mailed me with a question. I really thought that both my blog and the advice that I gave him over e-mail were pretty spot-on to his situation, but while he was polite and said that he thought that the advice was solid, that he didn’t quite see how that advice pertained to him or his situation.
This took me aback a bit, because as far as I was concerned, everything was pretty directly applicable. Then it hit me: the fellow in question was 23 or so, and his girlfriend was 20. In all of his e-mails he kept giving me more and more detail, listing many incidents that seemed out of character of the relationship as a whole but somehow making those incidents the focus of his communications with me.
Finally it hit me—he was so invested in me telling him what he wanted to hear (that his relationship was going to work out in the end) that he kept telling me things that were irrelevant in the overall scheme of his relationship but which might lead me to draw the conclusion that he desired. I told him that I simply didn’t think that was going to happen, and while he disagreed more respectfully (and less defensively) than I might have when I was his age, he disagreed nonetheless.
I think the reason that he disagreed (though I never mentioned this to him) is the same reason that I might have disagreed with a similar conclusion when I was his age: he was convinced that if this relationship didn’t work out, that he was never going to find another one. The ultimate thing that I feel I didn’t know when I was 20 is that if a relationship ended that I would find another one. That there was no reason to panic, or think of myself as unlovable or undeserving. That the “problem” might not be with me at all, but rather with the fellow—and that I was capable of moving on and attract men without those problems.
As I’ve grown older and wiser, I’ve often wished that I could go back in time and give myself that pep talk/advice so that I wouldn’t have to suffer through all the heartache that I did to reach the point where I am now. However, my conversation with this fellow made me realize that even if someone had given me that advice, I probably wouldn’t have been in a place where I could even seriously consider the ramifications, let alone truly internalize it and make decisions based on that knowledge. I had to go through those experiences myself in order to make those realizations.
It also made me realize that I really am the sum of all my past experiences, and if everything in my life hadn’t unfolded exactly the way that it did I may not have ended up with the wonderful man who is in my life today. And now I find myself still not perfect and making what might be considered mistakes in my relationship. However, I have found someone who loves me completely, mistakes and all, and who is capable of communicating with me and working through my mistakes (and his) and creating something that absolutely is more than the sum of our parts.
I find myself looking forward to a future full of, if not perfection, communication and compromise, which I have come to value more. Right now we are trying to set our finances in order since we spent our twenties accumulating credit card and student loan debt (we both have advanced degrees, which set us back quite a bit as far as financial stability despite our best efforts). We are seeing a financial planner and saving for a wedding and a house, and this is definitely going to require some serious short-term compromises in our standard of living in order to be able to get the things that we really want later.
This has made for some extremely tense conversations on more than one occasion. But we both know that we are looking for the same things and that we have found them in each other. No matter how many tense conversations we have, that tension is never over whether or not we love each other, which makes all the difference—and every problem infinitely more solvable. So I find myself in a strange way looking forward not only to those conversations, but also to my thirties, forties, and beyond.
What have you learned as a result of your past experiences? Do you think you could have learned those things via advice—or is the only way out, through?
You can learn more about Honey at http://honeyandlance.com/
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dadshouse August 1st, 2008, 11:21 am
Hey Honey – nice guest post! Lisaq – great site!
I think money is often a destroyer of relationships. Don’t let it happen to you! Sounds like you are keeping things strong on other fronts.
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lisaq August 1st, 2008, 12:18 pm
Isn’t she great dadshouse? You’re right, money can be a killer! Sounds like their relationship is strong and they’ve got it all thought out though…
And thanks hon!
lisaqs last blog post..What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20-Guest Post
Meghan August 2nd, 2008, 7:52 pm
Yes…even if I could go back in time and get the pep talk, I would have brushed it off.
Congrats on moving forward in your life!
lisaq August 2nd, 2008, 9:27 pm
I’m thinking we probably all would have. At 20 we’re just so damn sure we know everything already right?
Thank goodness at 45 I’m finally figuring out that I still have a hella lot to learn!
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