The Winter of Life is Not for Sissys "I AM "

I AM. WHAT I AM. NOW, AND I WILL ALWAYS BE, WHAT I AM. I wrote that when I was in high school. I am not certain I knew exactly what I was saying then but according to my journal I was sad about something and unhappy with myself. I will not rack my brain to try to remember back that many years, plus I was a teenager. I could have had a bad hair day and hated how I looked. Not too important today. Decades later, after much reflection I am certain that I might have been wiser than I knew. I realize now that over time we make decisions and live our lives in the best way we can at a given point in time. I have made some choices that today when I look back I sometimes want to rethink and can get into a little self-blaming. I certainly am not close to that same person I was then, I evolved as my life and circumstances changed. Love, Children, life, death, career, location, other people all add up to change. We adapt as we go, sometimes on the fly and sometimes with thought and care. But we do evolve and change. I has taken years of Faith, therapy, medication and time to realize that I have indeed done that best that I was able to do given the point in time and circumstances. I have learned not to re criticize myself. I do occasionally relapse, but not for long. Life is about growth and change. nothing ever stays the same, even rocks wear over time. The thing that has sustained me, if Faith. God loves me. (however, believing that all the time, can take work) it does for me, less and less as I keep moving, but it is important to always remember, and when I do something dumb hard to believe. I am now trying to learn to give the same grace to others. This is hard, but I am finding not nearly as hard as it was to accept Grace and Forgiveness for myself. It takes courage to be. It takes courage to accept and understand our own shortcomings and be honest to ourselves. in fact, I am not certain if I will ever get it right. It is easier to let hard truth slide and ignore the errors. I wrote this today because I had a conversation with someone who was feeling down because of things she had done early in her life and today regrets. She was young, a different time and place and we talked about what I have written above. I hope it made sense to her, because the person she is today is not the irresponsible impulsive teenager she talked about. She had changed, but I have no doubt at that time she thought she was fine with her decisions. Even that is hard to reconcile because we don’t think the same way today. No matter what I AM You ARE