i came across this old photo of myself recently from when i first moved to LA and it sent me into major nostalgia mode.. i was somewhere around 23-24 and i had no idea what i was doing in life. i was fighting serious depression (which is so deeply seen in my eyes in this photo). everything was heavy. i wasn’t quite bold yet. i started smoking cigarettes because it forced me to breathe deeply, to sit and be still in it all for a moment.. i couldn’t eat. i spent most of my evenings drinking coffee by myself at the coffee shop around the corner from my apt and writing in my journal while i listened to music and wished i knew what any of it meant. life felt too big and i felt too small. 

now, almost 10 years later i see that i wasn’t too small; that i just needed to get kicked around a little by life in order to see that all that strength and joy and boldness i so badly wanted at the time was in me all along. it’s funny how we conjure up turmoil sometimes to avoid being brave and doing the things we know we were created to do. i’d like to say i’ve outgrown that, but i don’t think i ever will entirely. the difference now is that i know it is not too big for me to overcome. that i am capable. that i am not defined by my circumstance or feelings. that i am ENOUGH. i’m lying here in bed looking at this and thinking all these thoughts.. thinking how this picture just so captures where i was in life and how ironic it is that i’m driving in it cuz i felt so lost and i’m lying here thinking, ‘oh how far i’ve come since then.. how much more i love myself now than i did back then..’ life is strange and beautiful.