Starting over

If you could be 18 years old when you wake up tomorrow, how would you live the rest of your life? Sexually speaking, or in any other way you care to comment on -- how would it be different from what you did? Might it be the same?

By rjzip | 11/03/2013 07:21 PM | 10 comments

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jackal, Would love to have been there.

fenwaydav 11/04/2013 05:58 PM

When I turned 18 in the fall of 1970, I was 3 months out of high school and 4 months away from enlisting in the Coast Guard. I don't have any regrets, but I do ponder about those "forks in the road" and what might have happened.

When I was 20, after some 16 years of confusing and wonderful sex play with guys, lots of questions, research and soul searching, I finally realized I was gay... but also knew it wouldn't be prudent to come out. Sad on so many levels. But if had been out and an active participant in the gay community, I'm sure I would have been wiped out in early years of the AIDS epidemic. As it was for me, having nothing but oral sex on the down low until I was 45, probably kept me relatively safe.

I wish I could remember the second day in a row when I decided not to do my Yoga. Missing once is OK, twice in a row is a pattern that should have been stopped. I guess that is a regret. Now I can barely put on a my shoes without internal bleeding... the whole fitness thing just slipped away when I wasn't looking.

PDQuesnell 11/04/2013 01:44 PM

If? If I had the choice, I would not choose to be 18, tomorrow am. I think the curse of mankind is we spend too much time dwelling in the past and future and not enough in the present. But if I did wake 18 tomorrow, I know my choices would be different, because the times are different. Like they say in sports hard to compare eras.

jacker 11/04/2013 01:22 PM

I'm with Sarge. Everything I did then made me the man I am today, I wouldn't change much of anything. I would have started investing sooner though if we are saying starting at 18 with the knowledge we have today.

txholdup 11/04/2013 11:46 AM

OK, Art4you, pick an age. When you wake up tomorrow, you are 30, 40, 50, 60, etc. Whatever, then tell us what you would do differently or what you would do the same.

rjzip 11/04/2013 08:35 AM

Oh no, not 18 please, can I choose an other age?!

art4you 11/04/2013 05:39 AM

zip, I'm not necessarily saying I have regrets, I'm just saying had I known back than what I know now I might have done a few things differently. After All you did ask "how would it be different for what you did".

fenwaydav 11/04/2013 12:03 AM

Of course I wish I'd taken a little better care of myself. But biggest thing for me would have been to go into a different field. I made a poor choice that is going to continue to haunt me the rest of my life.

BearinFW 11/04/2013 12:00 AM

I would have come out earlier and enjoyed open dating as a college student. Young men today don't realize the social strictures we tried to operate under in the 60s and from there on.

If I were 18 tomorrow I would respond to today's fast moving acceptance of homosexuality and the consequent recognition of equal rights with unbridled joy!

I believe that in those tender years into my early 20s I would find a guy to love and live with happily for the rest of my life rather than bounce from relationship to relationship. I would aim to be married and enjoy sharing everything. I would be more experimental with sex, trying more things early on.

Note to FenwayDave: We all have memories of things we wish we had done differently, and other things we wish we hadn't done.

As we get older we learn and grow. But we shouldn't have to regret what we did before we learned how to do things differently. If we didn’t go through those experiences we might not have grown stronger and more knowledgeable so we could change the parts of our life we regret.

I think we can agree that worry is a nonproductive emotion. And worrying about the "could haves," "might haves," and "should haves” in life is not only worthless, but potentially destructive.

Peace, brothers!

rjzip 11/03/2013 11:48 PM

I would have taken better care of myself. I wouldn't have smoked the 2 packs of cigarettes for over 30 years. I would have eaten healthier so I wasn't the obese person I was most of my life. I wouldn't have done every drug known to mankind and fried my brain the way I did. Had I known what abusing alcohol would do, I would have stopped a long time before the 12 years of sobriety I have now. I would have appreciated the people in my life more when they were alive and not wait till they were dead before I realized what I had. Sexually, I have had a great time and hope I can continually say that. I don't know if I would choose 18, but 30 even 40 would be wonderful.

fenwaydav 11/03/2013 10:52 PM