You will change, and that’s beautiful
Julia Cameron said it best, “going sane feels just like going crazy.” That’s how I feel most of the time, and this is exhausting. You might have noticed that I am exhausted all the time.
It feels that the more I learn about myself and the more I grow, the harder everything is. I’m always on the verge of giving up, of quitting being so interested in self-improvement and all that comes with it.
But then I look back. I look back and see how far I’ve already come. And how much I’ve changed. Usually, this realization motivates me to keep going.
I see the transformation in the details. Sometimes they seem unimportant, but they reveal that I’m different from who I was before.
I was browsing rental websites for apartments recently, and I noticed that the ones catching my eye would have had gone completely unnoticed a few years ago. What I want for the place I’ll live is different because the person who’s moving there is different.
The other day, when I was looking at my wardrobe, I realized that most of my clothes didn’t speak to me anymore. Wearing them didn’t make me feel like myself. They have once been how I wanted to express myself to the world, but now I couldn’t even recognize their message anymore. The person who bought those clothes is gone.
I’ve been struggling to create my website because I don’t like any of the multiple versions I’ve already started. They are not me. They don’t communicate who I am. I feel like they don’t belong to the person who I am now.
The best thing I’ve noticed, though, is how I’ve changed the way I treat myself. In transforming into this new version of me, I’ve found myself again. It does feel scary at times. It felt, and sometimes still feels, like I was lost — like I had no direction.
People tend to say that we’ll never be able to cross the ocean if we don’t have the courage to lose sight of the shore. What they fail to tell us is that leaving the shore is the easiest part of the journey. Crossing the ocean is wild. It’s scary. It’s frightening.
But every now and then you have this moment of calm when you can just enjoy the view. The waves aren’t crashing in, they’re giving you a break, and you can just appreciate the journey. Those moments make it all worth it. It’s in those moments that you can actually realize how far you’ve come.
When the waves are hitting, you’re just worried to get through them. You move and you react only to keep your boat afloat. Once you win the battle, you might feel exhausted from it, but there’s also no better feeling than knowing you’ve got through it all.
Every wave that hits you changes you. Every time the water splashes in your face, you have to grow. Every time the boat starts to rock, you need to learn how to keep it still. And you do it. Every time.
You’re in constant change. You’re constantly learning how to brave through the storms. You’re constantly becoming a different version of yourself. And that’s beautiful.
