"The 8 things I wish I knew when I was a teenager."

I wouldn’t be a teenager again for all the money and chocolate in the world. I can’t recall a more insecure, more angst-ridden time in my life aside from those first few weeks after having my first child.

It would have helped if I’d known a few things. I was so easily influenced by anything anyone said and did as long as it wasn’t coming from my parents because as far as I was concerned, they knew nothing. I was so quick to believe bad things about myself rather than good. I wasted so much time dreaming, worrying and experimenting instead of just enjoying my last responsibility-free years.

 Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by CUA – Life rich banking. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.

Here are the 8 things I wish I knew when I was 15. Now, all I need is to find me a time machine…

1. I wish I’d known that my parents advice was spot on.

My parent are pretty smart. Who knew? I constantly flash back to the advice they gave me and wish I’d listened. They had lived such amazing lives before having children. I should have asked them to tell me everything. I should have listened harder when they were trying to explain something to me. My dad told me to be proud of who I was, to stop trying to change myself and just accept myself for who I was. My mum told me about having to leave school in Year 8 to help the family, how I should be happy I was being given the opportunity to get the education she never had.

Why didn’t I listen? I want to slap myself upside on the head.

2. I wish I’d known that the food mum cooked was some of the healthiest I’d ever eat.

My mum made amazing home cooked meals. She made minestrone and chicken soups from scratch, baked amazing chicken and vegetable dishes that were so tender and full of flavour. Her pasta sauce was to die for. Her lentil soup – the most delicious dish I’ve ever eaten. So what did I do? I decided to let myself get sucked into stupid food fads, because that’s what all my friends were doing. “No Mum, I’m vegetarian today”. “No Mum, I’m not eating carbs today.” “No Mum, I’m not eating food today”. I was crazy!

My dad quickly became sick of my wildly fluctuating eating habits. He and my mum grew up in a time when food was scarce. My dad’s earliest childhood memory is of being five and stealing potatoes during the war because he was so hungry. “The food your mother cooks is the healthiest food you’ll ever eat,” he tried to explain to me constantly.

3. I wish I’d known how much I loved my family and enjoyed them more.

Family functions were like torture to me when I was a teenager. I hated them so much. We had so many. We visited so many relatives. I didn’t want to be with my family, I wanted to go out with my friends. I wanted to date boys. I wanted to go to movies and parties and have my own life. I wanted to live!

Now, family functions are my absolute favourite thing in the whole entire world. Nothing makes me happier than being surrounded by my family, my parents, my siblings, their kids and special friends. Having a big, beautiful family is a gift. I should have valued it more.

4. I wish I’d known that, just because the boy I liked didn’t like me back, it didn’t mean I didn’t have value.

When I was 15 I had a massive crush on an Italian boy at my high school. But I never said a word to him. Oh no, I simply admired him from afar like a stalker. I used to fantasise about being the girl he spent the most time with and indulge in fantasies where the actual girl would leave the school and I’d simply step into her shoes.

He never even knew I was alive. I felt like I was nothing. Why? Why did I let myself feel that way? The reason he didn’t know I existed wasn’t because I didn’t have value, it’s because I never said a word to him. And even if I had, and he wasn’t interested, I wish I’d know that he was one of many boys I would have feelings for and that just because some of them didn’t like me back, it wasn’t the end of the world, because someone special was waiting for me and I would find him and be happier than I ever thought possible.

5. I wish I’d known that the boy I’d never noticed liked me, and liked him back instead of the boy who had never noticed me.

There are three boys I know for a fact liked me when I was busy wasting time thinking of someone who didn’t know I was alive. They were all lovely boys, cute and funny. I thought of them as just friends. I thought being friends meant they couldn’t be my boyfriends.

I had no idea that friendship is one of the most important parts of a relationship. I had no idea that these friendships were little relationships and had I just opened my silly eyes, I would have seen how amazing they were. I was valued. I was special.

6. I wish I’d known how cute I was, how great my hair and skin was and how it would never be better than it was then.

I was a cute teenager, but I felt like an ugly monster. Why? Didn’t I know that at 15, despite the dodgy skin and small boobs, that I looked amazing? I looked like a typical, healthy teenager.

I had great hair and lovely eyes. My friends would comment on them. I was told I had great calves. How brilliant? Except all I could think of was my pimples and tummy and the scar on my knee. What a waste of time, hating myself. I should have looked in the mirror with the eyes of a friend.

7. I wish I’d known to value money more, to never spend every cent I’d earned, no matter how much or how little.

My family owned a small grocery store that I worked in from the age of 11. When I turned 15, I was out of there. I wanted my own job and my own money. I got a job near our home at another small grocery store and my first pay packet arrived on a Thursday. It was $68. I was ecstatic. I tore the little envelope open as I walked home and squealed in delight. I felt flushed and sweaty. I quickly changed clothes, raced up to the shop and spent every single cent on who knows what.

My dad always told me to never spend all my money. “Always keep some aside Giuseppina, never leave yourself with nothing.” I never learned to save. I got a rush from spending my own money but now that I’m older, I get a rush not so much from spending money, but from saving it and seeing that balance grow.

8. I wish I’d known that while school mattered, it really didn’t.

My mum was always telling me how lucky I was to be getting a great education and I knew I attended really good schools with teachers who cared. But the mentality when I was 15 was that my future depended on how I performed at school and in the upcoming national exams. It was all about getting ‘that’ mark. Even half a mark under and we were DOOMED. We’d never achieve ANYTHING. What a bunch of crap.

School mattered, my education mattered but I wish I’d known that even if I’d failed dismally I could still be whatever I wanted to be. Doing well at school is just one way into the career of your dreams. There are many others I would have performed better had I known this because there would have been less pressure. I tell every teenager I know that they can do whatever they like once they leave school, no matter how they perform, it will just take a little longer.

 What do you wish you knew when you were 15?

Celebrities were awkward teens once too …

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