Thinking back to a year ago, it's hard to wrap my head around all of the changes and how different things are now — both external and internal. I've always had conflicting feelings about change, both craving it and being terrified of it. Many things are better than they were, and I guess that's the type of change people crave, but so much of the good stemmed from devastation. Such is the human condition to have to experience the rain to view the rainbow. Is that too cliche?
I don't think the woman I was a year ago would recognize me now, though she would be happy to see where I'm at. I don't recognize her anymore. Fundamentally, I'm the same person, I think. My beliefs, morals, dreams... they're all intact. Only small details have changed but that feels like enough that those I called friends would see me as a different person. Not for better or for worse or anything like that. I don't think either version of myself is above the other, though oddly I am certainly happier now. That in itself feels contradictory though. I am happier and more content in myself and with my life than I have been in years, yet I am carrying the deepest sadness and heartache I have ever experienced. Life is funny like that, I guess. So many opposing thoughts and feelings that shouldn't work together but somehow do. It's like having both night and day at the same time – though I guess that's not unheard of. Plenty of place and people around the world experience sun filled nights and and days where the sun doesn't rise at all. Nature is like that – always demonstrating that what we experience in our lives isn't a singular experience, but something even the world itself goes through.