Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.

My list of regrets is most certainly longer than my list of accomplishments. I've done plenty that I'm proud of, but I've definately done more that I regret.

One of the biggest things that I wish I hadn't done in life is blow my high school career and subsequent 'college' years wasting time. I lost my direction, plain and simple. I had been through a very rough childhood and adolescence, I was bitter and angry. I should have directed those feelings into school, and found a way to channel them into doing me some good, but instead I blew it. I spent my Senior year of high school screwing around and wasting time. Cutting class more often than I went and spending far too much time suspended. I blew it before January even hit.

I attempted to go back after my entire class graduated. I wasn't turning 18 until near the end of September, so I had no choice but to stick it out til I was legally old enough to sign myself out. To say that my mother was livid over this choice is putting it mildly. I hated it. I hated going back to a school where I felt entirely out of place. Not to say that I ever exactly felt 'in place' in high school. I was awkward and uncomfortable through out my teen years, but in high school it was at its peak. I didn't know very many people. Everyone I was friends with had left the previous June just like they were supposed to.

I turned 18, and on my birthday signed myself out of high school. I procrastinated getting my GED for a few years. I sat around on my lazy ass and did nothing with myself. I had originally wanted to go to college. I even had one or two picked out that I was going to apply to. I ended up in beauty school, which was my last resort. It was easy, and it was close enough that my unlicensed ass could walk there and back every day.

I put off getting my license til I was 22 years old. For no good reason, aside from having parents who wouldn't buy me a car, and I refused to work. No money = you have nothing to show for it.

I easily could sit here and ramble on about how my shitty upbringing is to blame for it all. I could say that if I came from a normal family and house hold that none of these things would have happened. And while that may be true, it's all decisions I made myself. Putting the blame on my past is a cop out.

I spent a lot of time in my life procrastinating, being lazy and making poor decisions. I make a concious effort now to not do that any longer. Life is too short to live it with regrets.