Our life changes so quickly around us. Chapters are written & come to an end.
Life changes and we can forget to stop and celebrate how far we’ve come. We’ve travelled lifetimes from who we once were.
It’s so important to pause and take stock of where we’ve come from, where we are - not just where we’re going. Our culture conditions us to always be looking forward, to be setting goals, making plans. You’ve done so much already that is worth celebrating - you don’t need to do anything else.
Honour the spaces you’ve traversed in your lifetime, the risks you’ve taken to be authentic. You are such a beautiful gift to yourself.
There is a particular kind of grief that comes with growth. We can become so focused on who we are becoming that we forget to acknowledge the versions of ourselves who carried us here. The self who stayed when leaving felt impossible. The self who finally left when staying became unbearable. The self who dared to question what they had always been taught to believe.
These versions of you deserve tenderness. They were doing the best they could with what they knew, navigating the world with the resources they had available at the time.
Becoming yourself isn’t always about reaching for something new. It means turning around, looking at the path behind you, and recognising that you have already become someone your younger self could never have imagined.
You are allowed to rest here for a while. You are allowed to be proud of yourself. You are allowed to let this chapter be enough.