There's more. Unfortunately, I have a lot of regret from these past 10 years. Sometimes I feel like I've lived my whole life wrong. Anyway:
I wish I'd have kept my interest in sci fi and fantasy going, and kept daydreaming, kept thinking of creatures and aliens to draw and working on writing my story. Again, much like the guitar, I wish I had not listened to the voice in my head telling me I wasn't creative enough to do it.
When I was 20, I wish I'd known that the girl I was chasing at the time, trying so desperately hard to figure out was not at all the one I wanted after all. I could have saved myself many, many days feeling sad and sorry for myself, many arguments with my friends about this which I am very sorry for, much embarrassment, and many times that really weren't all that fun. I didn't really have that much in common with this girl and besides our initial meeting, it was hard to make conversation with her. It was very awkward when we hung out and I got tired of the feeling I'd get when talking to her that I was basically talking to myself. There was no conversational "building" that real friends or romantic partners have, and every time we talked I felt we just weren't getting anywhere. I really wish she'd just been mean to me in the first place, or that she didn't seem like she was into the same things as me, which it turns out she wasn't really all that into anyway. I tried to figure this person out for 6 years, before I finally started meeting girls who showed me that the one I was chasing actually didn't have what I wanted all along.
Which brings me to my next big thing I'd known when I was 20 - that I eventually would meet girls that actually were the kind I'd been waiting, wishing, and hoping I would meet but didn't even know anyone like them was out there. And that I needed to be ready when I did meet them, because there wouldn't be much time to act. These were the girls I'm often sad about now, but the difference is we actually did have things in common and we could definitely have real, meaningful conversations about our interests and ideas that went much deeper than small talk. But because I'd been floundering around aimlessly throughout my early 20s, I hadn't built up any skills that I was good at or cool stories about me when I met them. I wasn't prepared, but I should have been.
I wish I had just focused more on what I did want, and not on what I did not. I wish I hadn't continued reinforcing my habit of complaining, getting angry, and seeing the negative way as the most likely outcome of any given situation, and having a really hard time seeing how things could turn out well. I wish I had started having a more positive, confident self-image then.
I wish I would have known that the recession was going to end and that things were going to get good again, so it would be worth it to work hard and keep trying even though I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn't have given up on life like I did.
Lastly, I wish I'd just had a deeper understanding of the idea that neither me nor my family and friends were going to stay young forever, so I needed to make the most of this precious time with them and not spent so much of that time complaining and being angry or sad. A lot of my family who were not that old when I was 20 are very old now. Even the ones who aren't old have just changed, and it doesn't look like things will go back to how they were then. And a lot of my friends have moved away, so I don't see them often anymore.
I hate to say it, but I really do wish I could do my 20s over again. There's a lot I would have done differently.
