Not settling.

It's been three whole months since I've posted. I came back, hoping something would strike me, to find out that this blogging site has completely changed the format of everything. I'm looking at the screen, and it's a foreign one. It doesn't look like the page I've stared at so many times, tears streaming or smile widening, inspired and sharing it with the world. It looks different and new.

And that's when it hit me.

Things are changing. I mean, seriously changing. I started this blog with the heartache-driven hope of an eighteen year old who had just lost her father. I stopped going to school, moved to Atlanta, got a full-time job, and experienced life as someone who worked their ass off and had a bank account to prove it. I got to go to luxurious parties in Buckhead on the arm of the hottest photographer in town (hey, at least to me he is). I played volleyball on my off days, and had the body to prove it. Sound like I'm bragging?

Here's the reality. I was still sad. I was mortified that life had thrown me a curve ball that, for once, I didn't really know how to handle.

You saw it, and I still see it when I go back and read how I felt three years ago. I was over-worked, under-appreciated, spent way too much time in the car and way too little time with the people I still had. I felt like I had to do it all: work a job that I committed to, even though it was an hour and a half away, and start back school at the max hours they'd let me.

And it wasn't until about this time last year, that it hit me like a ton of bricks: I absolutely had the power to choose (and follow-through) with what I wanted. Not what was expected of me by my friends, my mother, my employers... but what I knew was good for me. I heard myself for the first time without any ands, ifs, or buts, and I respected myself for making my very own decisions that would ultimately lead me to this happiness.

And here I am, three years after all of this started... home on a Tuesday afternoon, just having completed a seriously powerful yoga class, and kind of hating how this blog has a lack of art to it. But I'm being honest. I'm writing to you the same way I would be telling you this story. No flavor. No color. Just truth. Instead of luxurious parties downtown, I cook dinner for my family and my friends on Mondays and we jam all night. That volleyball body? Yeah, it's gotten a little softer. But I'm strengthening myself now in ways that will help me prevail in everything I do in the future, not just in the way my butt looks in a bikini.

I'm getting older, folks. Such is life. And the closer I get to graduating and starting my career, the more thrilled I am that I've made it this far.

And ultimately, I'm proud of myself for listening to the bigger plan It has for me, and saying, "Yeah, that sounds good."