Maturity
I like to define maturity in terms of how it feels to look back, more than how far I’ve actually gone. For it’s always easier to appreciate my current reality, than it is to accept (and smile upon remembering) how different it once was.
I mean, whenever I come across an old piece of mine and instantly rush to edit its every word so it could match my current thought process and writing style, I know for a fact there’s a part of me that hasn’t fully matured yet. Because it’s still not willing to see my younger version for who she really is, and it’s trying to turn her into what she thinks she should have been instead. When really, the old pieces of me that exist between my lines, are largely what led up to the emergence of new ones.
Sometimes I look back at old pictures and videos, and feel like I’m watching an entirely different person and not myself. Yet I’d know that if it weren’t for her, I would’ve still been stuck where I’m now surprised I once was.
And so maturity can’t just be about moving forward while resenting the past, it’s more of acknowledging that every step of the way is as important as the end result. Which, in all honesty, isn’t always easy to internalize.
