inefficiency

My mamma was young when she met my papa. She was fifteen, he was twenty. And she spent the next sixteen years trying to be a good girlfriend, wife and mother without dealing with any of her issues.
We all have issues.

Childhood is just a horrible process of figuring out what you do and don't like about the world and deciding by trial and error who you want to be and how you want to deal with your troubles.
Everyone has troubles.
Every family has an addict, atheist, abuser, etc.
And usually every family has more than one of each.

I believe teenage years are dedicated to figuring out morals and deciding what steps you want to take first to become the person you want to be. Friends, jobs, education, hobbies...they usually begin in this period.
Twenties are the years where you solidify who you want to be by making choices and sacrifices for the life you want. You go out with friends instead of finishing your midterm, or you go to sleep early to be more alert in a job interview, these kinds of things.

By making choices, you develop a pattern of your lifestyle that can will lead to both successes and failures. If you want an education you make sacrifices for the future you want; if you want a family you decide who to marry and raise the family with and what kind of home you want to establish.

Of course, this is all based on the idea that most choices are deliberate. There are those who I like to refer to as "floaters". They are typically fun-loving, free spirits who tend to float through life. They float into a situation and may or may not be aware of what they are doing. They could float into a scholarship opportunity, or float into a bad relationship.
I believe everyone floats at some point and may be more likely in certain situations. Maybe you pay great attention to your studies and not enough to your friendships, and before you know it, your "bestie" has found someone else to lean on. Or maybe you pay close attention to relationships and your boss tells you that you bring your drama to work. There is a balance to this thing called life.

Either way, twenties are the years of consequences from those teen choices and priorities that we made. All of life is just setting and resetting priorities based on new insights and information through experiences. Some people are stubborn and end up suffering because of it, and some wander from one priority to the next without followthrough or commitment.
It's up to you to decide where you fit and how much of your lifestyle is your responsibility.

After all this, you take your childhood and teen years and try to be the best version of yourself you can be. However, what about these issues? What do we do with those?

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I was making my kids lunch this afternoon and nothing bothers me more than inefficiency. Anyone who knows me knows this. And when reaching for the bag of baby carrots in the bottom refrigerator drawer I notice that the bag, which conveniently has a zipper closed seal at the top, has a hole ripped in the bottom. A deliberately ripped hole.
Are you kidding me? Who on earth....oh wait... the love of my life, that's who.
sigh
Well honey, darling, dearest...you're kidding right?
The bag has a very visible zipper closing seal at the top and if that's not enough, it says in English on the front "resealable bag". . .
My neck is tensing up just thinking about it. (glares at wall)
*clears throat* So I did what any healthy, loving, well adjusted wife would do and took carrots out of the HOLE in the bottom and ignored the bag and rolled it up and put it away. Yay for marriage.
(just a side note, I chose to be married to a wonderful man and this really is one of his top five issues so I'm pretty blessed)

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After almost twenty years, my mother and I, finally are working on having a healthy relationship. Both dealing with issues that go back beyond our years, generations of sin and such, you know the routine. I spent a good part of my life deciding I was going to do everything possible to not turn out like my parents, sound familiar? And guess what---it's disgusting how similar we are...ridiculously similar.
One thing I learned from my parents though that has stayed with me these twenty-something years; you have to actually deal with your past before you can have a future. Not running away, not giving up, but finding a way to reconcile, reset, refresh, whatever is needed.
Sometimes you need to stick it out and sometimes you need to reset the boundaries...but you have to figure out your life. You have to figure out what happened, why it has helped or hurt you, and whether or not any of it was your responsibility. Then you have to ask yourself what is most important to you, being alone in your principles or being part of the family that you've been given, even if it means that your relationships are difficult and seemingly impossible. Maybe it's worth it to have relationships instead of being on your own. Maybe it's not. Your choice.

But I really must say that even though you have this convenient resealable bag, you can put as many healthy, good items into it as you can fit--but that hole is never going to patch itself up. And all the good things you keep choosing for your bag are inevitably going to disappear because of that dumb, inefficient hole.

(going to go get a rice pack for my neck)