Write it all down lest you become a stranger to yourself...

I wasn't expecting to log into Blogger and find content dating back 17 years.

I was happy I did but then, I started reading.

...and realizing that some things, I remembered vaguely. A few instances, I cannot remeber at all.

I was very thorough and detailed in my entries, and it is disconcerting to see how much we forget over trauma, depression, and time.

I wasn't expecting to not like myself at 26 years old. I wasn't expecting to feel sad for her. It feels like I was under such a thick blanket of denial about everything, about myself, about my own life. And as time wore on, I got lost in the perpetual gesture of apoligizing for myself. Of knowing something was deeply wrong but not having the courage, the encouragement, or the resources to get help, to look inside.

I wasn't expecting to finally have come so far down the road that reading myself almost 20 years ago is like reading a stranger. A stranger whose DNA you share, same wounds, same scars. But then more happened to you. You got new wounds, new scars, new falls...

But also, more stars have filled your eyes, more people have wiped away your tears. You may know now not to trust so many things, but you also know what to feel confident in. Life got bigger and you realized that the things that matter were right in front of you all that time, you were just too busy screaming into the void to see them.

I wasn't expecting to get insight on my current life. But sometimes the past holds up a mirror at you, and if you look back, you may be able to see the future tracing a path all the way to your past.