I try to be the type of person who learns from my mistakes, and let me tell you, I make plenty of them, on a regular basis.  Some people, though, it seems, are destined to make the same mistake over and over again, even though they have learned first-hand what sort of consequences are in store.

I was a teenage mother.  Thankfully, it was my late teens, rather than the early ones, but a teen mother nonetheless.  It changed my life in ways I'm sure I"ll never know, since I didn't have the opportunity to experience anything outside of what life brought me.  Not that it was a "mistake" per se, honestly, what I got out of it, at the very least, is a wonderful child who is growing up to be a wonderful person in his own right. 

For years I said that I would never have another.  In recent weeks or maybe months, I've been coming around on that front, realizing that, as young as I am, it's something I could wind up considering if the right person came along.  But one thing that I know for sure is that even if I do decide to have another child, it will be a decision that I and my partner make, not one that is made for us from a stupid mistake.  It will not be a situation where I don't like *any* of the options and you can damn well bet it won't happen while I am still legally married (which should be ending any day now).

I have no room to talk.  It's not my right to be judgemental on this front, it's really none of my business, but I am affected by the situation.  It's not my business, but it really still is.

*sigh*  How can I talk about this without giving it all away on such a public forum?

They're both in school.  She's just a child herself, having only recently become legal to drink.  He's much older and already playing the part and raising a child from the same sort of mistake.  They had plans.  Plans to finish school, plans to move from coupledom to living together to married, plans to set the situation right so that all those things could happen, and in the "right" order.

Now, who knows if either of them will finish school.  Who knows whether or not their relationship will weather something like this.  She's already going to be giving up some of her newly-found freedom, bound now to a child sprung upon her. 

And all I can think is, What was he thinking?  How could he not have already learned?

Yes, I am being judgemental.  Perhaps unfairly so.  It is not really my business, even though it affects me tangentially.  But this never should have happened now.  It shouldn't have happened before OUR papers were signed.

It makes me feel weird, knowing that I have no commitment or obligation here, but at the same time I have that stupid piece of paper that tells me I should feel...  something about this.  What I really feel is shock at the not having learned, and pity for the girl who could have...  should have had more of a life of her own.

It's really none of my business.  But I can still have feelings about it.

Not that I'd ever tell them.  For them, I worry, and that they can know.  All the rest of it, maybe I'm being petty or stupid, but I am really just in shock.  You'd think he would have learned by now.

~FG };^>