For the past few weeks I’ve been re-reading all my journals from my whole life. To be honest, this has been a little bit excruciating. Even reading it in the privacy of my bedroom, there have been moments when I’m so embarrassed by me. The insecurity! The Angst! The limited perspective! The immaturity, obliviousness, naivety, uncaged zeal and enthusiasm! Words, sprawled across pages year after year, describing my endless struggle to figure out how to change the things that were wrong with me, overcome my shortcomings, and deal with the trials in my life, leaped off the pages and refreshed anew those feelings. It seemed like decades passed, but no matter how aware I was, I just never figured out how to change.
But the surprise of it all has been seeing how, as I’ve gotten to the most recent years, I’ve actually grown! After rehashing the same themes year after year, some of my struggles, quite without fanfare or my even noticing them, have slipped away and no longer plague me.