Surviving Adolesence

I dont know how we did it, but we grew up. Looking back on our teen years, I'm sure each of us would remember something and possibly say, "What was I thinking?". Growing up was different or each of us. For some of us it was a sitcom, where each character played their role, each episode had a little problem and everything got resolved in its own way and ended up with a nice happy feeling. Sort of like Full House. Some of us acted in two shows at the same time. One where we were the kind of children our parents wanted us to be, and one where we experimented with all kinds of things they didnt want us to. For most of us, our parents were none the wiser, or if they knew and didnt re-write the script of their show to merge the two, they were uncommon folks who had a lot of faith in God and enough to trust us to know our limits. And then there are some of us who really kick, claw and bite our way through adolesence.

Looking back, I wonder sometimes did any of us escape the demons of the teen years? While it is a period of discovery, first love, new friendships, fashions, competitions and hobbies, for some it also means struggling with low self esteem that can either make you really shy and embarassed, or overly aggressive. It means peer pressure, parental conflict, the overwhelming need to be 'cool' and have friends. It means delving the depths of depression, trying to find yourself in the temporary high of 'tripping', fighting lonliness despite being amidst family and friends, and trying desperately to find someone who could understand you, only to have them betray your trust. In retrospect of course, you only felt that no one understood you because you were so confused about not understanding yourself.

How did we get through those years? How did we survive our first heartbreak? How did we re-build our relationships into the mature adult ones we have now? Somewhere between those troubled adolesent years and the person I am now, I know there lie the answers. And sometimes I wish that I could know what they are, so that I could pass them on to the teens of today. The truth is that there are no universal answers, and each of us must go through the difficult rite of passage they call adolesence to find out who we really are. Its that defining period of time which will decide which direction we go in. Sometimes I see how thin the line is between experiment and discovery and complete self-destruction and it scares me. But from my point of view as an adult now, I find that adolesence is equally difficult for adults because there is nothing we can do to help, but stand and watch this process. We cannot explain that we understand because we will not be heard. We cannot reach out in consolation because they are not children. We cannot give advice because it would not be received from us. So standing on the sidelines, now as adults, we take comfort in the age old wisdom, 'It's just a phase', and give way to the one who knows all and the only one who can help - Time. After all, we turned out ok, didnt we? And adolesence made for some of our best memories. We made it. And so will they.