I’ve decided I want to be a teenager again. I’m not sure if this mode of thinking is due to having three teenage girls, a summer spent checking out universities, or to the number of young adult books I’ve been reading lately. But, I’d like a do-over.

There are so many things I’d do differently. I don’t mean staying out of trouble or avoiding certain boys that perhaps I should have. Those were all learning experiences, and since I never ended up in jail or pregnant, things were pretty good.

I would, however, try to be move involved in school. Join more clubs. Definitely play sports. I wouldn’t have dropped science so soon, and I would have tried to get better grades in English – or maybe just enjoyed it a little more. Then I would have shaken things up and done university differently instead of picking a nice, safe business degree.

I try to instill these ideas in The Daughter…get involved, try something new…but like me back then, she knows everything she needs to, and I’m just her mom, so far out of school that I can’t possibly remember what it was like.

But I try to offer guidance where I can. I can’t go back and play sports, but I can sit in the stands and cheer on The Daughter at something she loves. I’m not the kind of person to go back to school and change careers at this point in my life, but I can help expose The Daughter to different career choices that are out there, and I can add to my life by writing and taking night classes, while keeping my job. And I can read books. I can immerse myself in places I will never go, worlds that will never exists, or times to which I cannot return.

Ah , to be young again.