LexTalk

What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?

View all responses

  When I first read this prompt — What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain? — I thought I would have an immediate answer.

Instead, I sat there thinking about just how complicated that question really is.

Because there isn’t one moment I would go back and change.

There are many.

There are things that happened to me that I had absolutely no control over. There are situations I stayed in longer than I should have. There are decisions I made that I would probably make differently today. There are people I trusted who taught me to be more careful about who I trust.

And yes, sometimes I wonder what my life would look like if some of those things had happened differently.

But I don’t want to live there.

I don’t want to spend my life trapped in an endless cycle of what if?

What if I had known better?

What if I had walked away sooner?

What if that hadn’t happened to me?

What if I had chosen differently?

Maybe my life would be different.

But I’ll never know.

And I think that’s actually the lesson I wish I could give my younger self.

You Don’t Have to Carry Everything Forever

I wish I had understood that experiencing something painful doesn’t mean you have to carry it with you for the rest of your life.

For a long time, I think I treated every difficult experience like another piece of armor.
Something hurts you, so you become a little more guarded.

Someone disappoints you, so you trust a little less.

Something goes wrong, so the next time something good happens, part of you waits for it to go wrong too.

Eventually, you become strong.

But sometimes that strength comes with walls.

And if there’s anything I wish I could change, maybe it’s that.

I don’t wish I were weaker.

I just wish some of my softness hadn’t gotten buried underneath everything I learned while becoming strong.

I Don’t Want My Past to Make Me Jaded

There are days when I wonder if I’m too jaded now.

Maybe some of it is self-doubt. Maybe some of it is self-pity. Maybe some of it is simply the result of living long enough to realize that people, relationships and life itself can hurt you.

But I don’t want those experiences to decide who I become.

I still want to believe in people.

I still want to love deeply.

I still want to laugh until my stomach hurts, travel somewhere I’ve never been, find magic in ordinary moments, and get ridiculously excited about the little things.

I want to be happy.

And more than anything, I want to spread love rather than allowing the things that hurt me to turn me into someone who expects hurt everywhere she goes.

Maybe I Didn’t Need All the Answers

If I could sit across from a younger version of myself today, I don’t think I’d give her a warning about one specific person, decision or moment.

I’d probably tell her something much simpler.

Not everything that hurts you deserves a permanent home inside you.

Some things will happen that aren’t fair.

Sometimes you’ll make the wrong decision.

Sometimes you’ll trust the wrong person.

Sometimes you’ll look back and wish desperately that you could rewrite a chapter.

Learn from it.

Own the parts that belong to you.

Forgive yourself when you need to.

And then keep living.

Because maybe healing isn’t reaching a point where you can look backward and say, I’m glad all of that happened.

Maybe healing is being able to say:

It happened. It changed me. But it doesn’t get to decide what happens next.