It Gets Better - Sept 25 2025

 

It Gets Better

Sept 25 2025

When I think of my old self

  —  the younger version of me  —

it’s in the 3rd person;

not I and me

but a distanced him and he.

If only, I wonder,

I could tell him things,

give him the hug 

he doesn’t know he needs,

and kick his ass

when a good kick’s deserved.

But sadly suspect

that even if he listened

he wouldn’t learn.

Who does

when they’re 16, and all at once 

so sure of themselves

mercurial

and insecure?

Who’d surely protest

just who is this old man

who insists he knows me

but is very uncool

and clearly should go?

Yet as different as I’ve become

there’s still much we share.

It’s as if character is destiny

and fate determined at birth.

Both of us are flawed

too slow to learn

and tend to burn our bridges.

And both of us, at heart

are still adolescent;

an age

no one wants to be stuck in.

It gets better, they say

and perhaps I would have

if given my well-meant advice.

But tell that to any teen

and the look of disbelief 

will fill you with compassion

for the inner struggle

and false bravado

of that fraught and tumultuous age.

We really do change. So much so, that when I think back and see my former self, it’s in the 3rd person:  I see him, not me.

But we also don’t change: the stubbornly persistent aspects of character and temperament that, if not baked into our DNA, get  locked in at some critical stage of development. 

There is a tendency to blame and resent your younger self for the mistakes he made: the poor choices, bad behaviour, and missed opportunities. But I just feel compassion. Know there’s no point in trying to straighten him out when all he really needs is a hug.