The Teenager

The reason I think I am good with teenagers is because I was one for so long.  I had arrested teenageness.  When I fell in love, I became emotionally drunk.  As we know, when drunk, we make silly decisions and do even sillier things.  When not with my beloved, I was unhappy in my own skin, discontented being with me.  This is teenage romance, except I lived it way past chronicle teenage years.  When I got dumped, which was inevitable, I got angry at her and felt deep self-pity for me.  I grieved as a teenager might do.  Then something happened and I began to receive the gift of emotional sobriety.  What happened?  I came to realize that the problem was me.  This is when I began to grow up.  Whenever something bothered me, or I felt wronged, or innocently rebuffed, I asked myself what is my part in all this?  It may be that the event or person in question did register negative on my radar, but often I found this was because I had unwarranted expectations, or was plain ole jealous, or had undue pride, or felt I am the center of the universe, and so on.  When I could get out of my own way, and recognize my part in an emotional wave, I calmed down.  I found that the same so called negative events did not bother me anymore, and often they were not so negative at all.  Sometimes I have to laugh at myself, but you can't, or else I will put you on my resentment list and off my preyer list!  Oops!  Felling like a teen there for a moment.