I have just watched last week's episode of the Durrells. It is a programme that I have come to really enjoy. Part of the story line was the youngest son's crush on a local girl and the complicated emotions involved with that, especially when he sees her talking to another boy.
Sometimes I have moments of sentimentality and nostalgia. I was talking to somebody yesterday about the idea that we would not want to go back to being teenagers again.
Actually, as I was watching the Durrells, I started thinking that I would love to go back to those early teenage years, as feelings of attraction started to awaken (or perhaps a few years earlier), when a rejection, or simply being ignored, or not having the guts to do anything about it all was the end of the world. Conversely, any sign of mutual interest was like all your birthdays coming at once.
I wasn't a very confident teenager. I was very gifted, especially in languages and music, and I suppose I largely hid away in those things, and interacted with the world through those things. I spent most of my time living in a bubble. I had friends but I always somehow had the feeling that most of my life, and my true self, was hidden inside. I suppose that those sorts of feelings are pretty common for anybody at that age but I often admired, and envied people who seemed to be able to burst out of the bubble and jump into the world.
I remembered those feelings when I had crushes on people and I had quite a few of them. I will confess to having one particular crush through most of my teenage years but there were others too. I wish I could go back to those feelings sometimes. I wish I could relive those feelings of butterflies when a certain girl walked into the room. I wish I could remember the complete and utter fear that accompanied any idea of reaching out, or saying anything to any of my crushes. I generally didn't.
I wish I could go back and do things again. If I had a time machine, I would go back to those years and have a word with my younger self and tell myself that more people liked me than I thought, that I should have more courage, more (inter-personal) self-confidence.
I'd like to go back to the first time I clumsily and rather awkwardly at first held hands with a girl. I wish I could go back to my first kiss and relive it. I wish I could go back to those days when it was all a mystery and something to be discovered.
I suppose I have reached a point where I am beginning to feel more clearly that my vocation is to a life of singleness, perhaps it always was really. At this point in my life, it feels like I am discovering a gift and am only now beginning to see that it is a gift. The problem was that for so long I wanted the other gift, and tried taking it. But I don't think it was a gift meant for me. This doesn't make me sad. In fact, quite the opposite: I am feeling quite a lot of joy.
I do wish I could go back to those years though and experience those crushes again.
