Growth

I've always loved journaling, since I was young and barely knew how to spell enough words to write down what I felt. It came naturally to me as a private way to express the feelings I did not always know what to do with. Now, it's something that keeps my life at peace which can be increasingly harder to do on my own. 

On this warm May morning, I flipped through my 52 Lists journal that I had started a year ago and never gotten past List 19. These pages were thoughts and feelings flooding me as I adjusted to what felt like moving backwards and forwards all at once. The magic of journals is that they capture all the emotions of that moment of life and when reading back on them, for me at least, that all comes flooding back in ways I often did not remember feeling. 

That was how I felt flipping onto this page, emotions clogging my throat and clouding my eyes. Handwritten at the end of a list of things I would always feel grateful for was this...

"I am learning to love the sound of my feet
walking away from things not meant for me."

Growth. 

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Right above it I talk about coming to peace with making my choice to leave the life I had dreamed up in Chicago but not genuinely feeling that peace yet. Trying to feel the earth under your feet again when you had spent the last 18 months walking on clouds is not an easy journey, but when taken one step at a time, you wake up a year later and it feels like transcending. 

In life we have choices, different paths we could follow, paths I believe can be equally as empowering. Committing to one does not mean letting another part of you die off. That's the magic of humanity, we can be passionate about many things all at once. 

I gave up a lot of things by jumping paths but, I never gave up myself. 

And by not giving up myself, I can look back and be proud that now, I am happily running in the direction that excites me as much as others and is working to meet my goals for life. I love listening to those hard earned foot steps behind me. They made me who I am, strong enough, empowered enough, genuinely me enough to keep moving forward. 

That's why I write. 

For the me that needs a reminder of how far I have come.