Yesterday When I Was Young

It's a Tuesday morning and here I am listening to songs that I grew up with.  One that I really liked (for the significance of its lyrics) is Shirley Bassey's "Yesterday When I Was Young".

As I listened, I could see my life as a screenplay before my eyes.  The foolish things one does when one is young, the devil-may-care attitude towards life and people, the people you love who hurt you and the dreams you dreamed that never came true.

Do I miss the years of youth?  Yes and no.  Yes, because there were so many things to do and explore and being young you somehow feel a sense of invincibility.  No, because what I had gone through in my younger years actually prepared me for what was to come in my later years.  I had learnt to listen to my inner voice instead of other people; I had learnt to pick myself up when I fall - and I had fallen hard many, many times.  I am what I am today because of what I went through when I was younger.

Yes, I made mistakes - some of which were due to my belief that it's my life and no one has the right to judge me.  They did not go through the pain that I went through and it was as if having gone through all that pain, I am entitled to do what I want to.  Mistakes are part of being human; you call them experience that teaches you life's hard lessons.  Some of the mistakes that I had made are still being paid for today but that is the nature of life.

"Life is not about waiting for storms to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain" - Anon