Everybody’s got a Story. Tell us yours!
Question #6: August 12, 2013
Tell us… What was an experience you wish you had had in your early 20′s?
Lee’s Story:
Well….I did a lot of things in my 20′s some good, some not so much, so I’m one of those people who think that sometimes it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. I don’t want to be one of those people who, on their deathbed, finds regret in what they DIDN’T do.
However, there was a point in my life with my ex-husband, that he had the opportunity to work in a world-wide, double-naught-spy type of business. The first post where we would have lived would have been France…Paris specifically. I was beyond excited, and started researching and doing preliminary planning. The places we would live would be France, Switzerland, and at some point England.
And then the big chicken-shit decided he didn’t want to live outside the country. (I was far more adventurous than he….one of the many issues we had.) So…
What do I wish I had done in my 20′s? I wish I had travelled more and lived abroad for a while. Oh well…things happen for a reason. Right?
I told you mine…what’s your story? What do YOU wish you had done in your 20′s? (Can’t wait to hear!)
Barbara’s Story:
While other people in their early 20′s were going to college parties, trying to decide what their future was, and experimenting with being out on their own, I was raising kids.
I was married when I was 17 and had my second baby at the age of 19. I used to dream of living the life of a single person….I had quiet a fantasy of what that might look like. Always a clean house, a social life filled with interesting characters, and a love interest that would satisfy every need…and then go home (demanding nothing more of me).
When you started a family that early (especially where I grew up) you were cut off from your friends. “She made her bed now she has to lay in it”…”If starting a family at this age is what she wanted, you shouldn’t interfere”. This is what my friends heard from their mothers. It was lonely.
Back in the early 70′s we didn’t have two cars in every garage. Being a stay at home mom meant literally…staying at home.
I wish I had taken control of life and simultaneously determined what direction I wanted mine to take…instead of just putting one foot in front of the other. My early 20′s were about other people. I wish I would have had the experience of focusing just on me.
As a side note….30 plus years later, I had a chance to get a peek at that life I used to dream about (sorta). My husband traveled a lot for work, sometimes we even lived in other states for extended periods. Since my kids are grown with families of their own, I was living the life of a single person. I was busy and engaged at a job I loved and was surrounded there by interesting characters. When I came from work it would be exactly as I left it. Clean. It really hit home one evening as I came home from work and opened up the door to the house…the only demand on me was to take the dog for a walk. The quiet of an empty house seemed deafening. Later that night, as I cut myself a solitary brownie and carried it into the living room to enjoy in this very quiet house, those old fantasies came flooding back. This…THIS is the life I used to wish for.
I didn’t care for it. I wanted the time back, I wanted to live in the moment and get back those all moments I probably missed.
I still wish I could pull out a good “college story” while at the cocktail party…but the older I get the less I hear people talking about their college escapades. Now, we’re talking about Grandkids….I win!
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Tags: early 20 year olds, everybody's got a story, experiences, middlesage, tell us
When I first started reading Barbara’s story I felt like I was reading my own story. I don’t often run across another woman who married so young. I married at 16…to escape a narcissistic father…and had my first child at 17. I, too, experienced the isolation from friends at the hands of their mothers…”she made her bed” and other such sentiments just like Barbara mentioned. Only I was divorced at 20 and living back in the house with the narcissistic father; this time with a 3 yr. old daughter. I got my GED in order to get a job, but I never went to college and I never made enough money to afford to live on my own. Yes, I was fortunate to have the option to live with my parents, but what I wish I had done in my 20s was live on my own and be totally self-sufficient. I met and married my second husband while living with my parents and we are still married today (33 yrs), but I have never lived on my own. Our daughters have left home so when my husband travels I get to have the house to myself and I love it! But it’s not quite the same as living on my own. That is the one thing I wish I had done in my 20s. Now the only way I will ever experience living on my own will be if I am widowed, and that isn’t how I would want it to be. I have a very nice life with my husband and we have wonderful grandchildren. We can travel if we can get away from work and we are still healthy, so I’m not complaining, but in answer to the question, I wish I had experienced living on my own in my 20s.
Wow, Kim! Such a small world! My narcissist mother was the reason for me wanting to escape! It took me years to stop carrying around that baggage! Baggage you sometimes don’t even know you’re carrying until you stop dragging it around. So glad to read your story!
Yes, us children of narcissists do carry baggage. Only in recent years since my mother’s death have I released some of it.
Kim, when my mom (finally) died I walked around with my ipod in my ears and when Lady GaGa’s song “The Edge of Glory” came on, I really felt like I could do anything now! That’s how I started writing! Have you read Dr. Karyl McBride’s “Will I ever be good enough”. It changed my life!
I will look into that book and thank you for recommending it.
Looked up the book on Amazon…I may read it yet, but it was my father who is the narcissist.
I would still recommend it. A lot of what you feel is the same. If you read it let me know how you like it.
Kim – I’ve heard more people say that! I have friends and relatives who have also never lived on their own without family, boy/girlfriend, husband/wife/partner either. It would be interesting if they are as introspective as you are. Thank you for sharing your story!
That’s easy. Travel. I had no money and was married for the first time at 24, then again at 27. I wish very much that I’d taken the time to take a risk, get off the straight and narrow and just gone.
Sharon Greenthal recently posted…Summer Reading – Under the Radar Books
I hear ya, Sharon! Me too!
Sharon – I love to travel. Lately it seems that it’s because we keep moving! Have mercy. It’s interesting how many of us choose travel in this question. Thanks for sharing!
It’s not so much what I wish I had had as much as an attitude about life. I was so ready to be a “grown up” that I rushed through high school and college (and to marriage altho it’s been great for 23+ years). I felt the need to stay in perpetual motion so much that I never took the time to breathe deep, slow down, and enjoy small moments. I’m only just now (in my mid-40s) earning how to do that.
Kerith Stull recently posted…Welcome home!
Ah yes, Kerith! Live the moment…a lesson I’ve been working on too. Always thought I needed to be somewhere else….doing something else…. Glad you’re learning this in your 40′s! comes under the heading…I wish I knew then what I know now!
Kerith – we have sung from the same hymnal. It’s only been in the past several years – and with lots of practice – to learn to live in the moment. Crazy isn’t it that we rush to grow up and when we get here it’s never what we thought it would be. Thank you for your story!
The one thing that I wish I had done more of in my 20’s was to go see more “live” concerts…like the Beatles, Crosby-Stills-Nash-and-Young, and Simon & Garfunkel. (We were in our early 30′s raising two little boys when Michael Jackson became big…and I do wish I had seen him perform.)
I know it’s not too late to see some of my favorites. Just a few years ago I was thrilled to see “TheTroubadour Tour” at a huge arena with James Taylor and Carole King…and my husband and I went to an amazing Gordon Lightfoot concert at a very small, intimate venue. (For those of us from Michigan…Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald” is a classic!) We also happened to be in Tucson, AZ in the winter of 2012…and we were fortunate to get to see Glenn Campbell perform on his farewell tour.
When I have seen film footage of Woodstock…something inside says I wish I had done that…but it’s immediately followed by another thought that says I would NOT have been happy dealing with the crowds, rain, mud, no facilities, etc. (So even though I was old enough to go…I’m pretty glad I didn’t.)
I AM VERY GRATEFUL that I DID get to see John Denver (4x’s), the original Beach Boys (when I was in 9th grade), The Smothers Brothers, Isaac Hays (Hot Buttered Soul), The Association, Smokey Robinson, Jethro Tull AND Cheech & Chong.
Two other performances that I have never forgotten…when I was about 5, my mother took me to see the prima ballerina Maria Tallchief dance in “Swan Lake.” (Ms. Tallchief just died this past April.) My parents also took me to see one broadway musical as a teenager…”Funny Girl”…with an very young and extremely talented Barbra Streisand.
These concerts and shows have left indelible imprints on my memory…and if I could do one thing over, it would have been to find a way to see more!
I’m so with you Sue! Paul McCartney is hot on my list, too!
Sue – music is HUGE in Barb’s life and mine. My first concert – and my dad had to drive us – was Cat Stevens. I also got the chance to see Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev dance together. Fabulous. Many great names on your list. Thank you for sharing the memories!
College, concerts… like Barbara, I was a (fairly) young mother (21). So my twenties were spent mostly poor, mostly exhausted, mostly covered in wet spots and stains, of whose origin you didn’t want to inquire too closely.
However, I did get in some awesomeness, because I scraped together the funds and begged my sister to take my toddler, and spent all three days at the US Festival (1983). 27 acts, including Stray Cats, Oingo Boingo, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Triumph (best of the show), Van Halen (sucked), Stevie Nicks, David Bowie. Hot desert sun in the afternoon, freezing desert nights, but it was FABULOUS. Sure, if funds would’ve permitted, it would’ve been lovely to travel, attend college, have a cabana boy, but in retrospect, I have no regrets.
Beverly Diehl recently posted…This Book Changed My Life: When The Body Says No
Holy crap, Beverly! What a line-up! And I’m liking the idea about the cabana boy…..