I sit down next to 21-year-old newly disengaged , undecipherable me. She has her face in her hands.
"Did I make a mistake? This is crazy. Everything you've said, your entire life...it looks impossibly different. Tell me the truth. If you could go back in time and undo it all, would you?"
I pause and then take her hand.
"You're right and wrong. It was different but apparently not impossible. More days than not as a 21yo I woke up angry, sad, tired, and scared. My head was always swirling with thoughts of what-ifs. My entire existence was questioned, I'd wake up in the night just to worry. I'd torture myself with thoughts of something happening to crush my heart.
I don't go to bed: I collapse into it and cling to the mattress like a life raft floating in the middle of a vast, churning ocean, no land in sight.
But as a 25yo now, I wouldn't trade these experiences and growth for all the gold in the world. Every day as I rise from the previous day's ashes, I'm introduced to a better version of myself. Every time I stretch my patience brittle, I deep sea dive into an ocean of self-love and come up more enthusiastic than I've ever been.
Every time I hear me laugh, see me smile, I'm bathed in a love so hot it burns. It's not the kind of love that expects Valentines or stirs butterflies, it's the kind that rises and sets with the sun faithfully.
Yes, it's been different but not impossible. And no, I'm not surviving, I've been thriving and of course, blooming.
very deep.
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