“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.” ~ Virginia Woolf

I am cleaning out my life. There are things and people that have seemed to clutter up my physical and mental space for more years than I care to admit. I am sorting through the half-forgotten times, places, and faces that have moment by moment shaped me into who I am today for the better and for the worse. A few months ago I decided this year would be a year of lasts for me and so I have taken the summer off of school to make sure I push forward with some of my other goals. I am not sure I am ready to explain what some of these goals might be in the specific, but suffice to say I have spent many years holding onto coping mechanisms and painful experiences that have thrown me off track from where I really want to be and who I really am.

This past week I spent hours looking through boxes of old photos and papers. I almost didn't recognize that platinum blonde 16 year old girl, or the 21 year old free spirit smiling in the sun. Looking through these captured memories brought me back to the times they represent and the friends who have filled my life with fun, joy, and occasionally heartache. These are moments I treasure however unpredictably they shaped my life. I will never forget the first guy I ever loved. Seeing those photos of us standing together celebrating my 16th birthday seems like a different lifetime, especially when I remember how painful the rest of that year turned out to be. But that night, that perfect moment caught on film, also reminds me that enjoying and living a full life by its very nature comes with a companion, sorrow. But I can see clearly how such an emotionally distressing experience at such a sweet and hopeful age can thoroughly reroute one's personal evolution. I am ready to reclaim the tiny chinks made in my belief in myself by being rejected for having standards that seemed antiquated and prudish. Though I hadn't thought about this experience for a few years, when I came across these photos from a time that seems as if from a distant dream of youth, I saw quite clearly how I had been slowly creeping off the central track of who I am by holding on to this hurt for far far far too long.

And there is more. So much more I have learned about myself now by looking back at who I have been. This is just the beginning....