New Milestones, Never forget where you came from

I am graduating college next month, a mile stone it has taken me 10 years to accomplish. I should be excited, and I should be proud, but so much is drawing me to my past, and reminding me to not forget where I came from. I know the person I am now, and it is most definitely not the person I was ten years ago. Sometimes I wonder if that's a bad thing. Did I turn into the person that I wanted to become today? Or am I hiding behind my fears of the potential I know I have. I lost someone very close to me, recently and it has made me think a lot about who I have become. It has made me think about my dreams and goals and the things I have given up, and some of the ways I have become selfish. What would he think if he knew me now. I know what he thought, and that is one of the things that hurts the most. In some ways I have lost touch with the free spirited person that I was, the person who marched to their own beat. I have molded myself into expectations of what the norm should be, and that was never me.

In this next milestone in my life, my next chapter, I am going to live my life the way that I know I am supposed to live it, the way that I know how to be happy. I am not going to try to live to your standards, or your expectations. I am who I am. And it has taken a few good friends in the last few weeks to remind me of that. I am not some image for you to compare, or for you to judge, I am who I am. Take it or leave it. I have lived life in many ways, and in the last few years I have stopped living it.

I guess what I am trying to say is it is important to move forward, but to never forget where you came from, and never forget the people who have been there along the way. There are only so many people you can count as real friends. Hold on to those ones and never forget them, because you don't know when they will be gone.

XOXO