When?

Not too long ago on Facebook a friend of mine posed a question on what advice you wish you could give your younger self.  For the last week I've thought a lot about the past and trying to figure out the period of time that I would to go back to and change things.  I know. I know. I really try to live life by looking forward and not dwelling on the past.  I am so much better about this as I get older but I haven't been able to shake this thought for the last week.  I would not go back to high school.  I was such an unhappy teenager who just wanted to throw everything away.  Those days are far too painful to go through again.  I wouldn't pick my University of Kansas or Kansas City days because I was far too lost.  I wasn't as unhappy as I was just lost.  

I would go back to my Chicago days when I was finishing up my undergraduate days. I had already experienced a lot of loss and struggled for years with different demons.  I was pulling myself together after so many years of not knowing what I wanted.  I was surrounded by family and meeting lifelong friends.  I had my health. I was just starting to develop awareness of who I was going to become. I had my dad. I would go back and just savor those days.  I wouldn't have wasted any minute of those three years. It wasn't a walk in the park even though I have let nostalgia creep in.  The last year of school was rough.  My dad's illness probably pulled me from the brink.  Actually, I know it did.  I was in crisis therapy -- four days a week for over three months.  But, it was also the most alive I have ever felt.  I also think I was at this crossroads when I was making decisions that would change the course of my life.  I stepped back from student teaching within a month of starting.  I made a decision on what to do for the year after college that led me down my current career path.  

Would I make those same decisions?  I have never regretted my decision of stopping the student teaching and not finishing my education degree.  It gave me a chance to spend precious days with my dad in the last year of his life.  I do think the change I would probably reconsider is doing another stint in VISTA and going to library school.  I don't think it has the been most satisfying career in that I don't think I make that much of a difference in the world or find as much personal satisfaction as I wanted.  I miss my idealism.  I miss the passion I felt for certain things.  I think those were things that made me a better person. 

I've made a lot of bad decisions since those days in my mid to late twenties.  I've also made some good ones.  Six years ago almost to the day, I was forced to make a fairly big decision of leaving New York and New Jersey for a return to either Chicago or move to Oregon. As much as I miss Chicago, I know that moving here was the healthiest choice at that time.  I was at one of the lowest points of my life.  Am I entirely healed from all of that?  Not 100% but getting there.  I recently decided that I need to approach big decisions with a little more thoughtfulness.  I know I can't get back my youth or recreate relationships based on who we all were back in those days. But, I am trying to get some of that spirit back.  I also keep thinking of my recent thoughts of what lessons I would take from the present and try to inject in the past.  I just don't want my future self looking back at this time in my life with regrets because that is my biggest fear --- that at the end of my life, I will have more regrets than moments of satisfaction.