25 Years. You haven't seen the last of me yet. You Fucking Suck.

I'm a shy person, especially when I was younger. I had a hard time making friends. I was an outcast. I liked doing my own thing, and I was pretty okay doing my own thing by myself without anybody else. I drew, I wrote, I created my own games, I did all kinds of stuff, and I was really happy doing my own thing. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at one point in high school in a situation in which I had a lot of friends; there was even a boy who had a crush on me. There was even a girl who had a crush on me too. And suddenly, I went from somebody who never had friends and was perfectly fine with that to somebody who had friends and was very afraid to lose those friends.<br><br>So I did something that I regret ever doing and it haunts me to this day. I stole something and it cost me my best friend in the entire world. And it wasn't even for me. I didn't even get to keep it. It was all for some stupid boy. And I would do anything in the world, anything, if I could go back and take it back. I would do anything if I could go back and say "No, I'm not going to do that." But I couldn't. I didn't. I did it. And I paid the price. A price which I am still paying today. I'm not the same person I was back then. I never will be. I think about it all the time. I think about how I can go back and undo it. How I can go back and regain that friendship that I had. But some things are so irrevocably broken, and that's one of them. There's no going back, and so all I can do is go forward.<br><br>I am an educator. I have spent 25 years working with children. I've spent 25 years teaching every kid I met that it's never okay to do something like I did. It's never okay to betray someone's trust like I did. I have encouraged children to make amends when they were in the wrong. I have encouraged children to value honesty and to never do something that they would not be proud of. And I've helped kids do the right thing, and when I see them do the right thing, it's good for me. It fixes something inside of me. It makes me feel a little bit better. But I will never be able to fix what I broke. I will never be able to go back. This is a burden that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I hope that you do not have to carry a burden like this. I hope that you can avoid making the same mistakes that I did. I hope that we can guide our children in doing better than I did when I was young. But no matter what, no matter what you do, you are not a mistake. You are always loved, and you have always been enough.<br><br>Goodnight, and I wish you all well. <br><br>(ETA - Thank you for the overwhelmingly kind words. It's something that I've carried with me since I was a kid, and I can't go back. There's a lot more to the story, but it doesn't change the outcome. The boy in this story ended up being a monster. The girl this story was for ended up passing away just a few years later. There's a lot of details left out, but, of course, hindsight is 20/20. I did carry this all these years. I never forgot it. I've never forgiven myself for it. I never will. <br><br>But what I have done is to take that experience and use it to help others. I've used it to help kids make better choices. I've used it to help kids and teens heal through this kind of thing. I've used it to make myself a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. <br><br>And I hope that when I die, I will have left the world in a better place than I found it in. And I will die trying. Thank you all very much.