When I Said, “I Hate What I’ve Become," I Lied. I Hated Who I Was.

Self-editor note: This started as a post for Instagram.

My first thought and reaction seeing this picture was, "Fuck you 19-year-old Dyllan."

I've had friends reach out lately and echo each other by telling me to practice kindness to myself. I'd do anything for my friends and family. I want to change how I think about myself because I can't keep doing that. I won't keep saying that to myself anymore. He was a heartbroken, hardworking, hopeful kid trying his best to do his best to heal and help. I wish I could tell him things get better because I wish I believed it myself.

I’ve tried harder recently to remind myself that 19-year-old me, is still me. While I mourn the dreams I once had, I try to remember the mere aspirations that have become experiences and reality. Right now, I’m definitely heavily in the mourning and grieving part of my life. I don’t know if I have actually allowed myself to stop long enough in the last 3 years to sit down with myself over coffee. I regretfully forgot where I heard the concept of having a kind conversation with yourself to yourself. Most of the time I have to give myself the hard talks, the hard truth. Focusing so hard on surviving quarantine, maintaining professional positions, navigating romantic and platonic relationships has left me empty and directionless.

Most of the last few days have consisted of hiding in my room crying or nearly crying or distracting myself from crying. I wish it I could say I threw a pity party, but god damn. How do you cope with the idea you made bad decisions or failed to decisively act in a moment and, yet, you wouldn’t change them?

Despite feeling so lonely, isolate, and far away from my friends and support systems, the few of them that have reached out this weekend remain my closest friends for a reason. They all understood my grief and sadness. They understood my pain and suffering. They understood my frustration and emphatic nature. I made an analogy to one of them: If you had a sword in your chest and the only way to remove it was to stab it in your best friend, or would you drive it deeper into your own heart? That friend told me to grieve for two days, then pick myself up, work on accepting my choices, and practice kindness to myself. “You owe that to yourself.”

Another friend felt “honor bound” to remind me of the good decisions I have made and the work required for them that I did largely alone. Next Wednesday, on my 32nd birthday, I will celebrate 3 years since I stopped drinking. I removed toxic, abusive, and hurtful people from my life. That meant losing friends, family, and romantic partners. I uprooted and relocated the only life and town I've ever called home. I’ve accomplished car projects started by 19-year-old me and even far off dream goals. I graduated college with a degree I love because it allowed me to explore my greatest intellectual pursuits. I did it without loans or debt or a new computer or a new car or the newest phone so that I could achieve a nearly perfect credit score as I do now.

Dreams beyond the dreams of younger me have come and passed as life experiences. Pain beyond the comprehension of pain literally made me lose consciousness and wake up in the bathtub with a concussion from falling and smacking my head on the faucet. Love beyond the greatest love imaginable turned to heartbreak, sorrow, and wisdom.

I know in my heaviest of hearts that I have changed so much from that younger me. I made short-sided decisions and lacked the ability to tear down the walls surrounding my vulnerable sensitive inner self. I couldn’t react in the moment and tell someone how much I love them, fear to lose them, need them in every day of my life. I stayed in romantic and platonic relationships that caused pain, suffering, and enabled my self-destruction. I worked dead-end jobs that abused my body and mind. I allowed suspicion, distrust, and paranoia to inflame anxieties.

While I miss, mourn, and cry for 19-year-old me, I can no longer relate to him. I understand how I affect people I care about with my words, actions, and decisions. I understand when lost in the forest for the trees, I do not see that at times. I understand how to vocalize my anxieties and clarify misunderstandings. I understand how to allow my friends and family into the guarded sections of my heart and soul. I understand they have the best intentions at all times. I understand how to walk away from people that do not desire to travel parallel journeys. I understand that love is not enough to conquer all. I understand that even if you make all the right decisions, you can still lose. I understand my triggers, weaknesses, and traumas. I understand that making more money doesn’t make it more meaningful. I understand how to tell people I love and care about them when it matters, when it counts, when the chance may well never come again.

So, here’s to you, 19-year-old me:

You won’t always have the answer to make the right decision, but you have the heart to make truthful decisions. You won’t always know the hearts of others, but you have the intuition to steer towards the good you see in people. You won’t always say how you feel, but you will always feel what you say. You won’t always be fearless, but your courage will guide you on your path. You won’t always have these people in your life, but your life will always have had these people even if you lose them. You won’t always be happy and smiling, but your tears will always speak to the hearts of the heartbroken. Your work won’t always meet your goal, but your drive to find and make new goals will always work out in the end. You won’t always win, but you will always step back up for another round. You won’t always need the love you want, but the love you get will always be what you need. You won’t always hurt the way this post hides it, but you won’t always hide the hurt. Someday, you’ll post about all of it and hope someone out there resonates with it and knows they aren’t alone. And neither are you.