The terrible teens, worst years of my life

A lot of people talk about how much better it was when they were kids, but I love being being an adult. I hated my teenage years.

The start of middle school marked the beginning of the worst six years of my life, ending with college. The only good year in there was 1987, when I was an AFS exchange student in New Zealand. It wasn't until college and afterward, especially when I met my wife, that I really started to feel comfortable with the way things were.

Do people have fond memories of school? I love to learn, but too much of school was spent trying to survive and avoid being noticed by my peers.

As early as third grade, when I was 9 years old, I have clear memories of being tormented and bullied by children who were faster, bigger and more athletic than I was. It didn't help socially that I was labeled "gifted" or that the majority of my teachers were content to let us work out our own problems even when that meant ostracism, ridicule and even violence.

That got especially brutal in fifth grade, when the district moved me to an elementary school where I literally had no friends, and it never really let up until I became an AFS student in 11th grade.

Is adulthood supposed to be rough because people get bored? Believe me, there's a difference between an adult who is bored because there's nothing going on that evening and a teenager who's bored because there is no one to call, no one to visit, and no activities where you would feel welcome, and summer vacation is just beginning.

Maybe it's an attitude problem on my part, but even as a teen, I enjoyed feeling that my input was valued, particularly in matters that concerned me. I especially was driven crazy by rules and instructions that made absolutely no sense about what clothes I should wear for church; insinuations that I was somehow putting on airs for speaking in an accent and in terminology I had used for 12 months while living Down Under; and being lectured incessantly when my opinions differed from my parents'.

My teenage years could have been a lot more fun. I could have told the cafeteria ladies that I was being bullied into silence by one of the students I was required to sit next to, instead of suffering in silence. I could have told people off who looked down on me, or just been confident enough in my own uniqueness or specialness not to care what they thought.

My teachers could have been a little more attentive or given me a little more praise when I did things well; the apathetic and unfair teachers could have been denied tenure. My parents could have tried other tactics besides telling me to ignore it, or done more to help me develop social skills, or even moved me into situations where my skills and interests would have been assets instead of liabilities.

Hard to say, it's been 12 years since I've been a teenager.

The trick ultimately for all of us, teens, old farts, or other, is to be content with what we are when we are. I've been saying since sometime in college that "now" is the best time of my life, and I fully believe it. In college, I was in my element and flourishing for the first time in years. There were still jerks, but there were people who accepted me for who I was and even people who encouraged me at what I did because they thought I was good at it.

Now that I'm 31, I couldn't be happier. I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I have the world's greatest daughter. I get to make money by writing for a living, and I get to indulge other hobbies, like organic gardening.

When I turn 40, I imagine I'll feel much the same way I do now -- that it's the best age to be -- and I'll continue to feel that way for as long as I live. If I could have felt that way when I was a teen, I would have enjoyed that age despite the jerks, and now that I'm a father, I'm going to do what I can to let my daughter experience the fun of being a teen that I missed.

I think I had a point, but I can't remember what it is.