Would 14 year old you be proud of who he became, why or why not?
Oh, for sure. My path at 14 looked like either death or prison, or that in the opposite order. My life was very terrible when I was 14, for a variety of reasons.
But now, I own my own place1, have plenty of money, friends, and most importantly I have a loving, lovely and wonderful partner to spend my days with. And who tolerates my incessant punning, sometimes across 3-4 languages at once.
I fucking won at life and my 14-year-old self would both be surprised and could not wait to be out of that hell and to be here instead. But I’m here now, and I’m very grateful for it every day — and that my past self had the will and resilience to endure what I did. Many people tried to break me. None succeeded.