Those Dreaded Words...YOU WERE RIGHT!

Dont you hate going to Walmart? If you are like me and tithe approximately 80% of your income to Walmart then you know what I am talking about! But being the glutton for punishment that I am, I return there week after week in search of that end cap bargain that I just cant do without. Today though, I went to pick up a prescription. When I got up to the counter to see if the prescription that was called in by the doctor was ready, I got a solid..."We havent checked the answering machine but I will let you know if it was called in or not." So translation: NO its not ready. And she added that it would be approximately 30 minutes before it would be ready. So I huffed and puffed and went about my business of collecting the necessary items for our household. Today I pretty well stuck to that task. I got the usual: toothpaste, bread, green beans and all the other not so exciting things we needed. After about 35 minutes or more I return to the pharmacy to see if my prescription was ready......NO DICE! And I had the honor of standing there with a screaming, squirming Lyndi and melting freezer items in my cart. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. Finally after an hour since I had inquired about my prescription, which turned out to cost me only $4 (yippeee!) , I headed to the checkout line.
Once I reached the check out line, Lila and Lyndi took off hand in hand around the corner of the aisle divider looking at toys. Then my phone rings. Its Grant (thats my stepson that will be 20 in November). He begins the conversation with "Go ahead and say it...you were right!" I was like, "Which thing am I right about, Im right about so much so often that Ive told you!" This time it had to do with the long distance relationship that he has had for the last year with his girlfriend that lives in Milly. She graduated from high school and will be leaving for school this fall. She has decided to go to Johnson and Wales, which happens to be an excellent school, especially in the field of the culinary arts. I think that she wants to be a merchandiser or designer or something. She is smart girl. But a 4 hour long distance relationship....not good, especially at their ages and for the length of time she is going to spend in college. More power to her! I hope she is really successful in school! She does NOT need to be worrying about Grant for the next four years. She needs to experience COLLEGE life! I wish that I had had that opportunity when I was younger. A lot of people make life long friends in college.
Anyway so back to the fact that I was right...... Truly I am not shocked or amazed at this revelation. One thing that Grant has failed to recognize over the last 8 years is that I really am not that much older than he is. I have been there and done that with so many things. I wish that he could learn from MY mistakes but I know that will never happen. My concern for him now is that he could get caught up in this society's lack of self control and find himself hooking up with several girls that just arent right or good for him. He is an attractive person (he looks a lot like Ashton Kucher). He will not have any problems meeting girls. I just hope that he does not think that he has to share everything with each person he meets or goes out with. Dating life is so scary. I speak from my own experience. I thank God everyday that I did not get in trouble any more than I did back in my younger years.
Grant thinks that if you dont get arrested for the things you do that you are ok. That idea couldnt be further from the reality of life. The possible physical and emotional scars can stay with a person for a lifetime that were received from some old relationship that a person had while they were young. Getting caught and getting arrested is only a small part of the whole issue. The additional damage that may go along with that can be even more devastating.
I try to think of where I was at at 19. If I had a chance to go back and do life over from that point on, I think I would. At that age is when I really started to make the MOST poor decisions in my life. Most of those poor decisions involved the opposite sex. And most of my poor decisions probably came about because I was not strong in my own faith or in going to church. Im sure that God probably could look down at me and say "I told you so..." He would have known how those poor decisions were going to play out. But I dont guess that I was open to that at the time.
So I figure in a few more years after Grant makes many more poor choices, he might come back again and tell us that we were right. Little does he know that our knowledge is probably based on some sort of personal experience. Too bad others wont let us save them from making stupid mistakes by learning from our own stupid mistakes.