What truths did you learn at 17?

[taterguy]

Just curious.

[blueamy66]

1. that boys are creepy

nt

[In_The_Wind]

2. That I really was happier because

I moved out on my own the day after I graduated from high school.

[Xyzse]

3. That my plan on becoming a "celibate" monk will probably not pan out.

[magical thyme]

4. that my parents would stop at nothing to destroy my dreams and my life.

[Tabasco_Dave]

5. Ronald Reagan sucked

and the GOP was full of shit. That's why i'm a democrat to this day.

[UTUSN]

29. true

[leftyohiolib]

6. that i was worthless

[UTUSN]

30. not true

[Revanchist]

36. Oh, you entered boot camp at the age of 17 also?

Nothing like being woken up by two large, angry sounding men at an ungodly early hour just 4 days after graduating high school.

[leftyohiolib]

37. no but i graduated high school an alcoholic

i just got passed along

[haele]

7. There was a much larger world out there than I expected, and a lot more people.

And that even though I thought I knew what I didn't know, there was a lot more I didn't know than I thought.

Also, the tricks I did to get away with what I wanted to do didn't work when I was supposed to be a grown-up.

Haele

[BlueJazz]

8. A large share of the population needs to go to driving school.

[warrprayer]

9. this

1974

[struggle4progress]

40. That was one of the least effective speeches in American political history

[warrprayer]

59. he was a crook n/t

[struggle4progress]

65. I think that speech effectively persuaded a majority of Americans of the fact, too

[Locut0s]

10. That I actually could make friends. That I was actually likeable...

Also to a large extent that there might be hope for me. Before this school had been years of absolute hell where I learned not to open up and to stay low. I was the freeky shy kid with adult interests who couldn't relate well to other students and it was best to make fun of or bully me. I quit school in grade 10 cause I couldn't handle it anymore. Then around 17 I went back to school at a different school and to my surprise made actual friends and for 2 years prospered very well. The lesson didn't last as I hit other emotional road blocks later that derailed my life but it was still an important life lesson one I will always be greatful for.

[UTUSN]

31. beautiful

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. Wow. 40 years ago for me. Mostly - that my time in high school would be a lifetime low point.

Hated it - didn't fit in, didn't like the cliques....didn't like anything about it.

Another - I could drink an awful lot and not get a hangover (grocery store Christmas party revealed that particular truth).

[LiberalElite]

12. That my hair looked better short. nt

[warrior1]

14. That I had to get a job

[UTUSN]

24. yip

[madinmaryland]

15. That there are people who are dumbasses. nt

[taterguy]

46. It took you that long to figure that out?

You must be a bit slow.

[TrogL]

16. Never, ever trust anybody

[UTUSN]

26. sad but sorta true can keep trying

[NightWatcher]

17. that marijuana is a good thing and should be enjoyed

It wasn't a demon weed that would ruin my life, but was in fact pretty is damn good and had no side effects.

What else was a lie???

[UTUSN]

27. it.s a pain killer not a party

[malthaussen]

18. That the universe was not disposed for my convenience. n/t

[UTUSN]

32. can.t keep learning that

[hunter]

19. College wasn't going to be all work and no play...

... and unlike engineering majors, where you were lucky to see two women in a class no matter how large it was (and it would be the same two women), in biology classes the women already outnumbered the men, which is one of the reasons I changed my major to biology. Something to do with tube tops and short-shorts, 'seventies style.

So far as engineering goes it's better now, but not by much.

Truth is I was as miserable and as melodramatic as many seventeen year olds can be. Three of my siblings had the good sense to run away from home at sixteen and seventeen, which spared the rest of the family a lot of pointless drama. My own kids were pretty good, they stayed at home, they stayed in high school, they got good grades, but there was still a lot of drama.

[lastlib]

20. "...that love was meant for beauty queens..."

[taterguy]

47. Nice post, Janice Ian

[UncleYoder]

21. You can't buy beer,

You can only rent it.

[femmocrat]

22. That college was much harder than high school!

And that high school hardly prepared me.

[Locut0s]

23. I learned that college was likely going to be a lonely place...

Large 200+ seat lecture halls and an often detached distant feeling around campus. You could easily make friends if you put effort into it but the atmosphere wasn't as conducive to it.

[femmocrat]

25. The college I attended was exactly like that.

I went to a large university in a city. Damn lonely place.

[arcane1]

28. None. n/t

[Neoma]

33. That spaghetti sucks.

I don't really want to remember age 17...

[cliffordu]

34. Don't EVER sign up for the army to beat a drug bust.

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. That no one told me when to run... I missed the starting gun...

Now I run and I run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind Me again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but I'm older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

[Iggo]

61. Pretty much that.

[hobbit709]

38. That the universe is stacked against you so make the best of what you get.

[struggle4progress]

39. Shoveling shit sucks. I probably knew it abstractly before, but I learned it in a whole new way

when I actually had a shovel in my blistered hands and a mountain of shit that somebody had unloaded there to shovel

I guess I might have learned something else, here and there back then, but it's none of your business

[hunter]

44. I'd rather shovel shit than shovel shit paperwork and I've done both.

Shoveling shit is good exercise, improves your cardiovascular system, makes you strong. Sitting at a desk shoveling shit paperwork rots your soul.

[antiquie]

45. Me, too, plus

after shoveling shit I got to ride the horse; after the paperwork, there was just more paperwork.

[struggle4progress]

48. Did you learn that at 17?

[hunter]

51. Yeah. I'd been shoveling shit, changing diapers, and cleaning toilets since I was a little kid.

My first shit paperwork job was at 17, but sadly, it wasn't my last shit paperwork job.

I quit the paperwork job to clean preschool toilets (three and four year old boys are the worst!!!) and literally shovel pony and chicken shit because "rural" was the theme of this preschool, catering to parents working in the high tech industries who didn't want there little darlings to miss out on traditional American values.

Of course in my family, which was actually wild west traditional, shoveling shit and cleaning toilets was something you learned young. This preschool wasn't the "real thing" because the kids never shoveled shit or cleaned toilets. I did.

[HappyMe]

41. Job interviews are tricky.

That I am smart, lovely and that not everyone is your 'friend'.

[dr.strangelove]

42. That when people said something was better than sex

they were usually lying.

[Tom Ripley]

43. That love was meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married...

young and then retired and it is always a good idea to pay your dealer and the trunk of a car is not a very comfortable place to be.

[valerief]

49. That all that 'opportunity' talk was a sham. As a woman, you only had a shot to make your mark

by either being born into a family with connections or sleeping with the right people.

BTW, I'm old, so it was long time ago when I was 17.

[Wait Wut]

50. That pregnancy is serious stuff.

But, 31 years later, I still have the best son a mother could wish for.

[hopemountain]

52. that it no longer hurt when my dad beat me

after sticking up for hendrix' version of the star spangled banner during a dinner table "discussion"

"go ahead, hit me some more if it makes you feel like a man!" i remember saying.

[annabanana]

53. That Love was Meant for Beauty Queens?

[Zorro]

57. A little off-topic

but her album Between the Lines (that includes the studio version of this song) is a stunning masterpiece.

Every song is either a knife to the heart or heartbreakingly lovely, but all are profoundly touching.

[astral]

69. Not off-topic, I thought this song WAS the topic!

Yep, I had that album, it gave me goosebumps to watch this video of her doing this song live with just her guitar. I was about 12 or 13 when that song came out, I think, and I was one of those loser kids who wanted to just hide away from other people because I found the the kids at school in the new town i had moved to to be very cruel to other kids, and I was one of the targets who wouldn't speak up or fight back, and even the teachers would look the other way, probably because of the parents of the bullying kids, it is small-town Who You Are, not What You Do. By 17 I was learning other lessons... that school was not a healthy place for me and it was okay not to be there.

[trof]

54. Sadly, not a hell of a lot.

At 17 I thought I was bulletproof and immortal.
My entire universe revolved around ME and MY 'needs' (wants/desires).
I was incredibly self-centered and naive.
More than just about anything else I wanted to get laid.
(That didn't happen for a few more years.)
And I was not unlike most of the 17 year olds I knew.

Happily, most of us grew out of that.


And here I am today.
I've been a fairly useful member of our society.
I've been a pilot and taken thousands of passengers from where they were to where they wanted to go, safely and with no loss of life.
Not a scratch.

I became a husband, father, and grandfather.
I think I've done a good job at the first, and pretty good job at the second, and I'm doing my best at the third.

At 17?
I may have been at my most stupid in my entire life.

[RebelOne]

55. That it is was really stupid to elope at 16 and become pregnant at 17. n/t

[pokerfan]

56. That cops lie

and will do so to your face.

[Jamaal510]

58. The double-standard that exists

where female virgins get treated better than male virgins. When I was in high school, guys used to get laughed at when they said that they didn't ever get sex.

[Codeine]

60. That you cannot go against Nature, because when you do

go against Nature it's part of Nature too.



I also learned that you have to fight for your right to party, that the music that he constantly plays says nothing to me about my life, and that there are times when my crimes may seem almost unforgivable.

[LadyHawkAZ]

62. The '69 Firebird was the best year Firebird ever had

Independence is expensive. (and so is gas)

People can be likeable people most of the time, yet still be capable of utter assholiness.

Next year is always cooler than now.

[noamnety]

63. That if you live in a closed community

where the women don't shave their legs, the men get over it in about a day and life is much more pleasant.

[blueamy66]

64. That boys are easy.

Nt

[raccoon]

66. That the world wasn't my oyster. nt

[DFW]

67. That in one year I would be eligible for Richard Nixon to send me to Vietnam against my will

Luckily for me, it never happened, but I had to live with that hanging over me for a while.

I also learned that there was a big world out there (I was living in Spain until that summer), and that my future might land me on another continent eventually (and it did).

[mythology]

68. That I was better off without my dad in my life

Although sadly, nearly the same amount of time over again and I'm still working on undoing the damage.