The past and the future and the gift called present

I found another old photograph of myself today. Not the kind people post online. Not the kind taken on birthdays or vacations. Just a random picture buried deep inside a forgotten letter. In that, I was smiling. Not perfectly. Not beautifully. Just honestly. And for a moment I stared at that you get version of myself like I was looking at a stranger.

It's strange how time words. You spend years becoming someone new only to suddenly run into the person you used to be. The girl who beleived every friendship would last forever. The teenager who counted every flaw in the mirror. The child who cried over things that now seems small. That are all gone.

And yet they are still here somehow. Living quietly inside the person I have become. I think about all the versions of ourselves we leave behind.

The one who was afraid to speak. The one who trusted too easily. The one who loved someone who never lived them back. The one who stayed up at night worrying about a future that eventually arrived and turned out completely different than expected.

We do not say good bye to these versions. We simply outgrow them. The same way trees outgrow old rings hidden beneath their barj. The rings never disappear. They just become part version of myself. I would tell hem things. I would fell them that not every ending is a failure.

That some people leave because their chapter is over not because you were not enough. I would tell them that helai v takes longer than anyone admits. That loneliness is not permenent. The mistakes are survivable. That one day they will stop apologizing for taking up space.

Most importantly I would tell them to be kinder to themselves. Because looking back now I realise how hard they were trying. Even they were confused. Even when they were making terrible decisions. Even they felt complete completely lost. They were trying. And somehow they carried off me here.

The change is too small to notice in the moment. Like watching a sunset. Life a season shotting. Like a scar slowly fading. The one day you look at an old photograph and realise you have traveleymiles without moving.

You survived things you thought you will break you. You learned things pain had to teach. You became softer in some places. Stronger in others. Different everywhere.

I do not think growth is becoming something entirely new. I think growth is learning how to carry all your farmer selves with compassion. The hopeful one and the frightened one and the angry one and the lonely one and the dreamer and the survivor. All of them deserve a seat at the table. Because without them you would not be here and be who you are. They did not have all these answers. Neither do I. But they kept going. And because they did I get to here today.