Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

The true prompt for today is or should have been: “Interview a Fictional Character.” I wasn’t feeling it, so I backtracked to January 1st. It was the first quote for Bloganuary 2022 before I signed up.

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

My mom and I had a rocky relationship during my teen years. As I grew older, I realized our dysfunctional family wasn’t like other families. Mom did what she could to keep me and my brothers safe. What I mean is, my mom was an abused woman and did anything to avoid a confrontation. To this day, I’m sorry that I gave her a difficult time during my teen years, especially when I was fourteen. Eighth grade was one of the worst school years of my life, and I contributed to making my mom’s life miserable that year, too.

I’d tell myself as a teen to be kinder to my mother. Her life wasn’t her own, and she did the best she could with what she had.

Regardless, whenever abuse came into the picture, and my older brother wasn’t there to step in, I took his place and did what my young self could do to protect her. As I got older, we became close and our relationship strengthened even more when I became a mom. My mom became a wonderful grandmother to her grandkids.

Whew, I didn’t expect to write all this personal stuff, but it’s here now. Maybe someone else will pop in one day to read it and give advice to their teenage self.

Is there any advice you’d like to give to your teenage self?

Thanks for reading today, folks. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. ~MJ

Featured Image Image by Rebecca Scholz from Pixabay