For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 22, 2019

Harsh, isn’t it?

Don’t worry Michael one day you will wish you were young again.

“When we were them, we wanted to be us. Now that we’re us, we wish we could be them.”

I’m sure there were already kids with glasses in your class and school, Elisabeth. And Micheal, there IS no age where you can do that, so deal!!

“Don’t worry. You’re still Lizard Breath with me.”

Let me know when you reach the age when no one tells you what to do, and you can do whatever you want. I’m 40 and still have people telling me what to do, when to do it. The city tells me I can’t have chickens, yesterday they told me not to park in my driveway, so they can repair the street. My boss tells me when I have to be there and what to do at my job. The list goes on with being told what to do

Yes as all of the above says, we never actually get to do what we want, when we want.

As the old German saying goes:

" Wir entwickeln uns zu bald altesUnd zu spätes intelligentes."

or for the English speakers:

“We grow to soon oldAnd too late smart."

I know that feeling.All through high school, I dreamed of being on my own.

How often it has occurred to me that if I could just go back to grade school knowing what I know now!

Or someone will. I Had two boys, raised them alone from ages 4 and 6, one died at 21, 22 years ago, the other at 36 nearly 10 years ago. They made life worth living. Even with how it turned out, I’d not change a thing, knowing them, loving them made me into a man I’d never have become without them. I never understood unconditional love until I met them. The teen years were hard but remembering them as they were at Elizabeth’s age, and younger, gave me perspective. There were a lot of other things I never understood until they were in my life as well. Think of both every single day. Will until my last breath.

So when you’re older, you can do what you want when you feel like it? HO HO HA HA HA HA HA HO HEE HA HO HA HA! Michael, you’ve got some education coming!

Isn’t that always the way? When we were children, we never saw the restrictions placed on our parents by their jobs, etc. So we thought that they never had anybody tell them what to do and longed for that so-called freedom for ourselves. We railed and ranted against the restrictions and demands put on us and wailed about not being an adult. Isn’t it funny how we all (or most of us anyway) changed our minds as we grew older and realized what adulthood really meant?

If you are serious Michael, figure out how much you will need to save so that when you are legal age you can move away and then start saving. Otherwise start looking for ways to make your situation where you are better (like don’t be such a twerp all the time). You might be surprised how things can change for the better in your current situation.

Just wait until those very words come from your own children’s mouths.

Elizabeth is surprisingly having this conversation with the one kid did actually treat her differently. The kids at school didn’t notice her glasses until she started screaming about it.