Growing and changing is a part of life.
You should not be staying the same as you were in high school or college, you should continue to grow and become a better version of you. But sometimes becoming that better version of you means taking a sidestep and backtracking because you accidentally took the route that crowded you with weeds rather than blooming petals.
I have had to face many difficult choices over the years, and as hard as that may seem for you to think that a 23 year old has faced choices harder than which outfits to put on, or which tiktok videos to post, or which fast food chain to eat at today; there are a number of us that have had to make adult decisions that affect more than just our own being since an even younger age.
Throughout this choice making process, I have become somebody I disliked, somebody I loved, and somebody I hated because I have gone from letting others blind me from the truth, have enlightened myself and become stronger, and let people drag me down and dictate how my life gets to play out. That time in between, when I loved myself? I felt the most like me. I felt the most at peace with my choices and who I could become. But then I let that person, that version of me, slip back through the cracks because I let others sink under my skin.
I want to become that other version of me again. I don't want her to disappear back into the shadows when something else goes awry though.
I want to love the literal skin I walk in.
I want to have confidence in my choices.
I want to be independent and self-sufficient in my endeavours.
I do not want to have a fear of what others will think.
I do not want to be concerned about how others will react to my actions.
I want to be wholeheartedly me and I want to have that stick around for more than just the time I am away at school.
That is going to mean continuing to make those hard choices and throwing my life further into disarray first, all in hopes that I will stay rooted and grow even after the harshest of winters.