Gams

Friday, June 8, 2012

10 Years

My 10 year high school reunion is this month.  Can it already be 10 years since I walked across that burnt stage {yes someone burned our commencement stage as a ‘prank’…it is called arson, not a senior prank}, received my diploma, cried with girlfriends and promised to keep in touch, then packed up my bags and moved to Indiana?

In some ways it feels like I have been done with high school for multiple decades, and at other times I feel like I am still that adolescent girl; naïve, ambitious and carefree.

I have had incalculable amounts of varying experiences and life lessons learned since high school which have shaped me and my course of life {as I am sure we all have}.  Am I where my 18 year old self thought I would be by now? Probably.  Did I take the path my 18 year old self projected? Possibly.  Am I WHO my 18 year old self thought I would be? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

Realizing that I am doing and have done what I expected of myself and with some unforeseen detours, I even took the route I expected fills me with a sense of pride.  Pride because I knew myself fairly well at a young age, had solid plans and the endurance to execute them.  But those are just my accomplishments.

When I think about WHO I have become, I am both frightened and thrilled!  Frightened because I am not exactly the person or personality that I expected.  I don’t think about things the way I expected I would by now in so many ways; my world view, spiritual principals, parenting philosophy, etc.  BUT thrilled because I like who I am and even if I’m not who I envisioned myself to be 10 years ago, it is thrilling to know that I don’t have to limit myself to what I thought I wanted; I can be different, BETTER even! That makes the next ten years something to look forward to; to see how I develop and how God develops me!

It is interesting to reflect on who we were, who we are and who we will become. 

And then I wonder…Do we ever really inherently change, or do we just continue to compile our life experiences and develop who we inherently are and have always been?

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