Kate Kessler's Blog - Posts Tagged "girls-in-trouble"

I found a lot of trouble as a kid, and it found me. To wax poetic, trouble was my most constant and loyal friend during my teenage life. We still keep in touch. Trouble taught me some valuable lessons that I have never forgotten.

1. True friends won't throw you under the bus. I once got into trouble with my cousin and a girl I considered a friend. Nothing brings clarity quicker than hearing someone you thought liked you blame you for her getting into trouble, like you twisted her arm, when she walked willingly in.

2. There's no such thing as being 'scared straight'. People think it's the fear of jail, or consequences that keep kids from choosing trouble as a career, but I think that's wrong. What makes a kid get their act together is seeing what jail/consequences have done to other people. I don't think it's fear, I think it's empathy, and it's especially effective when it's used as a mirror.

3. Your mother really will love you unconditionally. Unless your mother is a jerk, she will love you no matter what you do. Mine refused to think I was a rotten kid, but she did teach me to channel what I had going on into something more productive than adding to my juvenile record.

4. Honesty is the best policy. Standing before a judge at 14 years of age, I was asked why I had done what I did. Unlike the girl before me, who had sobbed, "I don't know," I thought I'd be honest, and told the judge, "Because I wanted to." He said it was the first time anyone had ever answered him honestly. It stuck with me as a valuable lesson, and I'm reminded of it every time I don't employ the practice.

5. Rehabilitation is a state of mind. You can be punished in all manner of ways. You can go through therapists like water. You can posture and say whatever you think people want to hear, and you can work as many steps as a program provides, but unless you can work it out in your head, it will never take. 20 years in jail doesn't make a person better. 20 years of coming to terms with what you've done, and deciding that you no longer want to be that person is what makes you better. And it starts with believing that it's okay to be a work in progress. Start thinking you're better than your transgressions, believe it, and eventually it will take.

So, those are the things trouble taught me. As far as lessons go, I'm glad for them. I'm also glad for trouble, because trouble is what drives every plot.


It Takes One