If I met my younger self today, I wouldn't tell them how to avoid pain. I wouldn't warn them about the mistakes that will follow them into adulthood, or the nights they will spend replaying the same memories over and over. I would sit beside them in silence, look at the person who still believes they will turn out just fine, and ask one question that took me years to understand: Are you ready to forgive me for the person I'm about to become?
I don't remember the exact day I became aware of time.I only remember the feeling — the quiet shock of realizing that moments didn't stay, that they slipped away whether I was ready or not.
When I was a child, time felt endless. Days stretched wide and forgiving, as if mistakes dissolved on their own before nightfall. I believed that whatever I broke — toys, promises, small pieces of trust — could always be fixed by tomorrow. No one told me that some things don't heal just because time passes. Some things wait.
I used to sit alone in places that felt safe: the edge of the bed before sleep, the back seat of a car while the world moved past the window, the corner of a room where voices softened into background noise. Those were the moments when my thoughts were loudest. I didn't know it then, but I was already practicing how to remember.
There were signs, even early on — moments when I chose myself over honesty, silence over truth, comfort over courage. They were small choices, the kind adults dismiss because children are "still learning." And they were right. I was learning. I was learning how easy it is to walk away from accountability when the consequences haven't arrived yet.
I remember the first lie I told that mattered.It wasn't dramatic. No one cried. No doors slammed.But something shifted inside me — a subtle realization that I could shape reality if I tried hard enough. That truth was flexible. That I could avoid disappointment by bending the story just enough.
That was the day I learned a dangerous skill.
As I grew older, those moments stacked quietly on top of each other. Not enough to crush me — just enough to change my posture. I learned how to laugh at things that hurt. I learned how to stay quiet when speaking would cost me something. I learned how to pretend that the weight in my chest was normal.
By the time I reached my teenage years, I had become fluent in avoidance. I knew how to disappear into crowds, into noise, into people who asked nothing of me except to stay the same. I mistook freedom for recklessness, confidence for indifference. I crossed lines not because I didn't know better — but because knowing better felt inconvenient.
Looking back now, I realize no one failed me more than I failed myself.Not out of cruelty.Out of ignorance.
I didn't understand that every choice, no matter how small, leaves a trace. That memory is not a punishment, but a record. That one day, I would carry all these moments not as stories to tell — but as questions that refuse to stay unanswered.
This is not where regret began.This is where it was planted.
And like most things planted too early, it took years to grow.