And There Goes 26 Ladies and Gentlemen

As I review the fact that myself and the age of 26 only have a few more days together, I have only began to realize how much older I really am feeling.  Not in the sense of being afraid of the age I am becoming but instead being very satisfied with my progress as a human being. There were years were I was not happy with myself and there were years where I loathed myself and now the years are only full of appreciation and love for who I am and what I have been through, survived and come out better from.  It's as if each year I walk through a fire only to get to the other side a little bit brighter and stronger instead of burnt and destroyed.  

I find myself now getting excited about the strangest things.  Complimentary champagne at hotels, bamboo wood floors in my apartment, finding the perfect winter coat.  There are still those childish pieces of me but they are not pettiness or jealousy, they are only positive lingerings of my youth - creativity, imagination, refusal to be told that I am not able to do something I wish to do.  I am turning new leaves where I look at decisions I have made and I am able to be proud of them, even if I regretted them.  I am able to brush things off and truly mean that they have not harmed me, instead of the destruction I used to allow to myself.  When things hurt me now, my perspective is to just continue - not to revel in the pain and suffering.  I no longer admire any sadness or darkness.  I only admire strength and courage and truth.  

Lies no longer pour out of my mouth.  Twists and turns and omissions and falsities don't even enter my brain matter anymore, let alone escape from my lips.  I used to lie as not to hurt anyone and now I realize that all I did was hurt those I was trying to protect.  It was no way to be and at times I feel ashamed that the lesson did not reach me sooner.  But coming from a Father who only lied, it was a hard habit to break.  As evil as it sounds to my ears, I would much rather now bring pain to someone I love through honesty than to cover it up and pretend it is not there.  

It is remarkable to me how much of ourselves we change and how much of us, at the root of it all stays the same.  Even if it's different versions of the same. I recognize so much of my younger and former self in my current state but I know that I have been shaped into something that that younger and former self would not believe to be me.  There are so many bits and pieces of ourselves that we leave along the way, traits and aspects you thought you would never shed that were dropped long ago, with or without realization.  Growth is so wonderful and amazing and even at the times that it pains and pricks and aches like nothing else, it is still the only reason to live.  

As they always say, you are the one that you have to live with - there is no point trying to love or do or be anything if you do not love yourself.  And when I die alone, the only thing I hope I have is love for who I was.  And for everyone and every moment that made it possible.