Fifteen

Do you ever wish God would send you a note so you would know what to do in a given situation?  Well, He seems to have sent me one today.

My planner had the following quote today:  “ If someone talked to you the way that you talk to yourself, you would have kicked them out of your life a long time ago. “

I’ve been  having a lot of those conversations with myself lately. Conversations where all I can think about is what I did wrong, what I said to people, what people have said to me, and I beat myself up over and over about it. Tapes play in my head repeating every stupid thing I’ve ever said or done.  Every embarrassing moment . Every careless thing I’ve said that I wish I could take back.  Replaying moments that I’ve hurt people.  Replaying moments where they’ve hurt me and all I could do is try not to cry. 

This week it has been hard being a fifteen-year-old girl. Every problem I face, every moment that doesn’t go the way I wanted it to, seems like the biggest problem in the world with eternal consequences. These problems aren’t life threatening problems, not problems that will mess up my future, so why are they ruling me?

I have absolutely no idea.

I keep asking people older and wiser than I am, “Did I handle that situation right?” panicked that I messed up, ruined a friendship, or missed an opportunity. 

Their reply?   “You are fifteen.  There is no way to handle every situation perfectly.  This is your time to mess up, make a fool of yourself and learn from your mistakes. Learn young while the consequences aren’t so great.”

So maybe this  feeling that I can’t get things quite right is just part of being fifteen.