"Long Dark Twenties" was a song on the Kids In the Hall movie "Brain Candy" soundtrack. It had the lyric:

"He sized things up
He was dismayed
At how the years had flown by so fast

He had a future
He had a dream
But all he really wanted was to have a past"

At 25, I thought this was talking about me. Now, I realize that I, personally, was deprived only of a certain kind of past, and I definitely had a past. I can remember it all, thankfully.

Tree of Life in Spring

(Erf.) I kind of missed out on my first quarter century of life. I was all wrapped up in protecting my fragile ego, and I had absolutely no energy left to live life. That plus depression. I finally had a breakdown at 25, and I sure would have appreciated having it earlier. But I cannot generate much self pity. The Raw Spot is embryonic compassion. The very best injuries are the ones that never fully heal, because now you have the prerequisite for authentic compassion. I hope to form that authentic compassion during the rest of my life.

The weirdest part is knowing that if I had a time machine, I doubt I could have pushed my younger self to a better place. It would have been like pushing on a rope. Maybe I am being too pessimistic. One of the nice things about the Internet is that it is collecting, for all time, stories about humans that are true and have happy endings, but which are completely unmarketable. If you want to write a story about human triumph that is completely unmarketable, put a long hard slog in the middle of the story, and end it with an internal personal victory, and an ambiguous external victory.