You Jelly? Totes

I am happy for them.  Really.  But watching the numbers count of my nursing school classmates who have taken the NCLEX and passed get higher makes me cry.  Yes, I cried happy tears for a few ( read=one) but when I see more and more people add up I cry because of what I have done to myself to ge me here.  Looking backwards past the struggle just get to get through nursing school, and into the mindset of an 18 year old teenager who never thought about the future, never thought anything she did would affect her life negatively down the road, I want to reach back in time and smack myself!
I want to grab myself by the shoulders and scream in my own face WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!!!!!  Don't do it. It's not worth it.  I could be an RN by now if that self-centered too big for her britches little girl had just gone home that night.
I can recall it.  I can see it.  I can feel the cold, the heavyness of my varsity jacket, the look on the cops face when i attempted to smart mouth him.  Hind sight is always 20/20, and in this case it certainly isn't getting blurrier.
I try to implore to my children that everything they do matters and will come back around to them eventually.  This took me 20 years but here I am.  Lying in bed crying because that little girl 20 years ago thought she was so cool. 
Tomorrow I get to go down and get fingerprinted.  Ironic, its 2 days shy of exactly 20 years after my arrest.