I always hear older people say, “If I could turn back the hands of time…” they wouldn’t have done this or they would have said that. They would’ve made sure that they had built a better foundation when they were young or taken education more seriously. Whatever the case, there’s always something from their past that they wish they would have handled differently.

When I was younger, I always wondered why they said those things. I was pretty much a happy kid with no real worries, living the life, so I had no clue why adults always seemed so regretful about their pasts. It wasn’t until I gained a few years in wisdom and experience that I realized what they were talking about. It was then that I finally understood.

My list of wishful do-overs is pretty sizeable, from my college choice to relationship decisions. Sometimes I sit and think to myself, “Man, you really messed up on that one!” Or “Moms was right when she tried to warn me about that.” But just like every other human on the planet, I understand that I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes and will make plenty more, but I’m now learning to live with those not-so-good choices and grow from them.
Often times, people are so consumed with “could’ve, should’ve, would’ves” that they forget to move on. You know, the ones who sit around and dwell on the past almost every day of their lives. People who always want to lecture you about how they screwed up and how they desperately wish they could change things around. What they don’t realize is everything that we do, every bad decision that we make, is meant to be a learning experience. If we don’t go through those mishaps, then we remain void of wisdom and are unable to teach those around us how to stray away from the bad choices we’ve made. When we live in the past, we remain stagnant, become depressed, and lose the potential to correct our wrongs and brighten our futures.

I’ve seen this happen with so many people. From fathers who remain absent in their children’s lives out of shame of being non-existent in the past, to mothers who regret having kids by a certain man and end up taking their frustrations out on the children. I know I’m not the only one who’s familiar with those types. Or the kind of people who are so ashamed of errors that they’ve made that they run away from any and everything that reminds them of those problems. They run and they dodge instead of facing those faults, coming to terms with them and making amends. And this is an even bigger mistake than that ones that they’re hiding from.
It isn’t always easy, but learning to live with regrets makes life much easier. We’ve all done things that we aren’t proud of no matter how big or small. But you can’t let those missteps consume you. Constantly thinking about how things could’ve been and what you should not have done will only diminish your spirit and gnaw at your mental and emotional health. Let it go. If you need to, ask for forgiveness, pray to God for strength. Change your thinking. Be a better, smarter you. And please, learn to live your life.

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Teen sweetheart Tiffany Evans recently popped back up on the R&B radar unexpectedly when she revealed in an Essence magazine interview that not only was she pregnant with her first child, but the she had been married for two years. Evans is only 19 years old, which places her walking down the aisle at 17 years old.  At 17, the only aisle I was walking down was located in the mall as I blew my whole paycheck on shoes, clothes and lip gloss.  No stranger to the tabloids, 19-year-old Miley Cyrus gained another gallon of side-eye from the public when she announced her engagement to boyfriend Liam Hemsworth whom she met in 2009 while filming The Last Song.  And the voice behind Penny Proud, 25-year-old Kyla Pratt faced a bit of backlash from abandoned fans when she announced that the reason she was MIA for a while was because she was busy being mommy to 1-year-old daughter, Lyric with fiancé, Danny Kirkpatrick, a former dancer turned tattoo artist.

In a world saturated by teen pregnancy, deadbeat baby daddies, and mommies who are shaking in the club when they should be at home two-stepping with their toddlers, it’s refreshing when we finally see young couples that are “doing it right” by getting married along with having kids.  But are they losing a crucial part of their youth in the process?

Getting married and starting a family are steps in life that there is no turning back from.  Your twenties are all about finding, nurturing and learning to take care of yourself before you become responsible for a lifetime of commitment.  I’m not saying there aren’t couples who take on these responsibilities early and do so successfully, but so many times I see people forgo the freedom and unique experiences of their twenties only to end up resentful in their thirties suffering from “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda” syndrome.

Sure, the ladies mentioned above are probably financially stable and have both personal and professional experiences that most people will never have, but I still can’t help but wonder why it seems so many young people want to rush into marriage and having children.  I wouldn’t trade the reckless abandon of my youth for anything because not only do I try to live with no regrets, but many of those experiences (both good and bad) prepared me with life experience and memories that I wouldn’t have otherwise, which I am hoping in turn will make me a more well-rounded person.

The best thing about being a single twenty-something with no children is that it’s one of the unique times in life where you have freedom as an adult without having all the responsibilities of one.  Besides, you have the rest of your life to schedule every minute of your existence in a daily planner, multitask being a wife, mother and daughter and save for retirement. The list below features some key experiences that I think all young women should have in the short years we are still “young, wild and free”: