I’ve been asking myself all week how I would feel to be exactly a year away from 35.

I’m here now and don’t feel any different than I did yesterday. Looking back through the years that have passed though, I can see quite the difference.

I’d made a habit of writing in my journal every year on the day before my birthday to see how I am feeling about completing another year.

And I can honestly say this last year may even be the most I have grown. I’ve had help, it wasn’t easy, and I haven’t reached where I want to be yet. But I feel like I’m on the right path, moving in the right direction and maybe on my 35th I’d be able to see how different I am to when I first started this journey.

I had a really amazing person tell me this a few years ago, (I’m rephrasing) – change may not always be bad. But where loved ones are concerned, we need constantly updated them on those changes. Everyone changes over the years. It is a survival instinct. And some of those changes are hard to deal with, sometimes for ourselves but most times for those around us. This is where regular updates help the process along.

We change to accommodate a person sometimes, a situation, a need for growth, or for survival. Most times they’re good but at times a situation forces the change on us, and we may not appreciate or like that change. The good thing about it though is that we can change back or change forward from there. We can decide to do that for ourselves and/or for the people that we love. It may take time & effort (sometimes a lot of both) but with the right kind of support & strength, it is achievable!

And that’s where I’m at today.

I miss the innocence lost to experience, over the years. I miss the person who gave everyone the benefit of doubt. I miss the person who looked at everything through the lenses of positivity & unquestioned trust. I miss that girl I left behind along the way.

But I still hold the essence of who she was because most of it is still me, my personality. But I’ve also learned to take it all with a pinch of salt now instead of just a spoonful of sugar.

I’m old enough to know that I’m not old enough to know it all. I’m young enough to know that I’ve got so much more to learn. Even if I were to live as long as Methuselah did, I believe I would still be an innocent to this ancient world with its infinite amount of wisdom and knowledge and those years would still not be enough in this life to learn & retain all of that information where I barely hold what I know now together.