Even though he outweighs you by 30 pounds and is on the wrestling and football squads. Nobody should get away with giving you an elbow to the back of your neck when you lean over to pick up gym clothes swiped from your locker.
If there’s one thing you will learn in the next 50-odd years it is that you have a high tolerance for pain. For instance, some day, you will be lying in the ER after a cycling accident, chatting amiably with a number of nurses when one of them will bring in your X-rays and they’ll go, “holy shit, we didn’t realize you are that fucked up!”
He’s bigger and stronger, and it’ll probably hurt when he responds. You’ll get over it, and in time it will be worth it.
Some time after you graduate from high school, say, late 1993-ish, you’ll notice that the state of console gaming looks pretty dismal. The NES’ phenomenal run has finally reached its end, the SNES is disappointing you to a degree you didn’t imagine possible, and Sega’s systems are hardly better.
The Neo Geo is not the solution. Repeat. The. Neo. Geo. Is. Not. The. Solution.
The magazines that say the system and games are ridiculously overpriced, that $200 for a game is flat-out insulting? They’re absolutely right. They say the quality really isn’t all that great? Yes, a thousand times yes. Only one shop in the whole state you can even consider renting games from? Outrageous, a complete non-starter. It’s going to crash and burn if dedicated gamers like you don’t open your wallets right now? Good, it should. It’s exactly what it looks like, a complete, shameless ripoff, and you should not squander one cent on this doomed system. Of course it looks golden next to the SNES. A freaking Game & Watch looks good next to the black abyss of wasted potential that was the SNES. That does not make it in any way, shape, or form a quality system. Trust me, you’ll know what a quality system is a few years down the road.
Until that time, lie down, take a few deep breaths, and find something else to do with your time. You don’t have to give up console gaming permanently, just until the industry gets out of this canyon-sized rut and starts being fun again. Hey, how about an exercise routine? You’re going to have to develop one anyway, why not start while you’re still young and sorta-energetic?
Don’t really have anything else. So much of the good stuff in my life has been luck and happenstance that any advice would be useless.
Don’t pursue a career in music. All those teachers telling you that you’re brilliant and talented are just happy to have one student who isn’t a tone-deaf idiot. Anyway, they all have secure jobs, so it’s no skin off their noses when they tell you to “pursue your dreams.”
There’s no way to pick just one.
The way Dad puts you down has NOTHING to do with you and EVERYTHING to do with his own insecurities.
Mom will always turn a blind eye because of her own childhood issues. Don’t depend on her.
Befriend an older woman that you admire and respect and get guidance from her.
Drugs are bad…mmmm kay?
Cigarettes are bad…mmmm kay?
Try new things, join clubs, sign up for special classes, learn one musical instrument well.
Stick with yoga and dance and do it for life.
If you have the opportunity to graduate from high school and go to college early, take it. You’ll “mature” just as well being a youngish college freshman as you would being a high school senior, but you won’t have to put up with the high school social bullshit.
Ask out that tall girl with the big tits that everybody makes fun of for being tall and having big tits. The guys are dorks/shitheads, the girls are jealous.
Did pretty much that except worked what would have been my high school senior year. Good advice.
Not much to tell a younger me other than “don’t sweat the jerks” and “it gets better from here.” Not that I didn’t make mistakes, lawd knows not that, but mostly they were necessary ones to make and to learn from. Being told even by an older me would not have larned me as well.
Get rid of your toxic friends. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been friends since you were 10 years old, don’t keep thinking they will change, ditch them, you will be lot happier.
(It took me until I was in my 30’s to ditch one friend, who emotionally abused me for years, I should have cut her loose as a teenager.)
