being suzy

I've had regrets in my life. Who doesn't? Mostly about things that I wish
I had done and things I wish I had done differently. And things I wish
I hadn't done at all! Last night I watched a show that could have been
about me! Called 'Being Erica' it's about a 32 year old who has smarts, looks and a snazzy apartment but is stuck in a rut of dead end, low paying jobs, has a high achieving, disapproving family and and can't seem to get herself a decent relationship. Hey, I said. That's me. I'm smart, nice looking and a great catch. Yet I'm 27 and have never had a really good job. Just dead end, boring, underpaying, underemploying ones. My family are all careers and PhD's and 'what are you going to do when you get home?'- not a clue. 'When are you going to work in the industry that you studied for?'- never! And as for the whole relationships issue, let's not even go there. All attempts (and let's be honest there have been very few) have ended in apathy or disaster.

Imagine if I could go back and change things. If I had one wish it would be to be able to do that. I would go back to teenage me and tell me to stop being such an ugly wallflower fashion victim. Oh the clothes I wore. Hideous! I had such a lovely figure (and still do) which I swamped under layers of baggy tshirts and checked shirts. Looking like a really small lumberjack. My skin was horrendous and my hair. Well. I just look at old photos and cringe.

I'd have more fun at uni. All I did was go to classes, go to tutorials and go home and study. I never joined any clubs or did anything fun and didn't have many friends. I would do uni completely differently. For starters I'd study something completely different to what I did. Multimedia! What the hell was a thinking? I sucked at it. I got half way through and knew it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life but I figured - you're halfway, might as well finish and see what happens. It has opened doors to me in my life but to be honest I wish I had done an arts degree or studied something like biology or environmental science. I'm crap at websites, design and all that stuff. Plus it changes every 5 minutes so the stuff I learned at uni is completely useless.

I'd go back and give myself a big kick up the butt and say YOU'RE YOUNG! YOU'RE CUTE! GET OUT THERE! There'll be a time in your life for being a little old lady. That's not now!! Live your life honey! Your skin is bad. Don't just put up with it. Get some bloody medication and fix that up. Go to a proper salon and get your hair done. It looks awful. Get someone to teach you how to put on a little makeup. And my god ditch the lumberjack shirts! You're a teenage girl! Talk to boys don't run away from them. Get yourself out there and show people that you're an interesting, fun, smart person. I wouldn't be the doormat, the bookworm, the girl who no one invites out because they think she'll say no.

But this is real life and there's no way of turning back the clock and no magical time machines. So you just have to make the best of what you have and make sure that you make the best choices now. And I do fall back into old habits even though I try not to. But I recognise that now and I think that's the key. Recognising when you are starting to fall back and pulling yourself up. My biggest non-regret of recent times has been my travelling. I'm so glad I did this otherwise I'm sure I would still be at home living with my parents and slogging away in the brain atrophying job I was doing when I was 22 with nothing to look forward to in life but a slow, steady, sad decline into insanity. So here's to travelling, independence, new people and places and hopefully 2009 will be the year of super social Suzy and the first proper relationship! Be about bloody time!