Next Lifetime.

We grow older and parts of us begin to fade away more and more as we create new versions of ourselves... but what happens to the old us? What happens to the games we used to love to play growing up? What happens to the drawings we drew and proudly gave to our parents every day after school? What happens to the broken hearts we felt when our heart was crushed for the first time? What happens to all of the passions we once had, that we lost when we grew up and were thrown into the real world? What happens to us as we shed our old selves and create new ones that better fit who we are in that moment? When we become parents? When we become spouses? What happens to the old us when our parents pass away? What happens to us when we gain responsibilities and depend on ourselves in order to survive our everyday lives?

I'm in a place in my life right now where everything that happens I take as a lesson to learn from. I'm embracing the universe for what it is and all that it has to offer me. But sometimes I miss the old me. Sometimes I miss that girl that overworked herself until she couldn't feel the bottoms of her feet. I miss the girl who had friends but honestly not really, they were just people to have around, and I was just a person for them to confide in when they needed me - but they were never there for me. I miss the girl who was so foolish when it came to love that she would fall for anything. I miss the girl who didn't set boundaries until it came to allowing herself to be happy, that was the only boundary she had. "If you're never overly happy, then you'll never become disappointed by disappointments", something she told herself regularly for years. But I still miss her, and I still wonder how she's doing. Is she healing? Did she ever find herself? Does she learn to let love in again? Does she learn how to love herself, properly and wholly?

I know it might sound crazy to say that I miss her, but there was an innocence to her. A sweetness. I miss her because she was easy to love. I miss her because she was misunderstood and mistreated. Because she was lost somewhere in a fog that she couldn't see her way out of. Because she was sad, and she was alone. I miss her because I was all she had. For a while there, my life and my mind had gotten so dark, that I thought she'd be the last version of me. That girl. That young, broken girl. The broken girl that was only broken because she was constantly trying to fix broken people. And every time she did, she did it by giving them the best parts of herself. The best that she had to offer. So, by the end, there was no more good left inside of her. They were all fixed, but she was nothing more than a fragment piece of glass found on the floor, leftover from her shattered spirit. Unloved by herself. But still I miss her.

That isn’t to say that the journey I’m facing now hasn’t been appreciated and embraced. I’ve been happier than I have been in years. But there are parts of me that feels guilty for that. I feel guilty, toward myself, for allowing myself to be happy now when I couldn’t allow it all those years before. I was so stuck in my ways of survival from being in countless mentally or verbally, sometimes physically, abusive relationships that I had forgotten who I truly was.

I’m silly and creative. I’m fun but also a complete joy kill. I love Mary Jane because it makes me feel connected to the dirt in the Earth. I’m an over thinker, temperamental, and I am impatient. Highly impatient. I’m a writer with no specific writing style. I love to sing but I lost my voice because I stopped using it. I enjoy cooking because I’m naturally not too bad at it. I love children. I love people that don’t fit into the “norm”. I love to look outside and think of what life would be like if nature didn’t exist the way we know it to exist. I love to think outside of the usual boxes. I just love to be free, but I had forgotten those things. Because for years I was nothing more than and nothing less than, sad, angry, and afraid to live again. So I lost who I was within a darkness that I was trapped inside of. I lost my passions, I lost the things I loved, hell I even lost the people that I loved. I fell so deeply into a pit of blackness that even if I had wings to fly, I still would’ve remained trapped. So I buried all of the real parts of myself and I became someone I couldn’t recognize.

So is that the answer, then? Is that where it all goes? The older versions of us, the many things we used to love, once forgotten about do they all get trapped inside of a pit of blackness until our next lifetime? I hope that in my next lifetime I feel nothing but happiness and love. I hope that I can embrace the beauty that life can offer me. In my next lifetime, I pray that the universe will guide me hand in hand. I pray that peace will always be what saves me.

To the old versions of me, thank you. You put up with everything that I did to you, and in the end you made sure that I found my way back home. You made sure that I learned how to love myself again. You made sure that I forgave myself for everything that I did and did not allow to happen to me. Thank you for not letting me do anything permanently harmful to myself, so that I could see myself and my life as I am now. Thank you for teaching me to allow myself to be happy, and to rest my spirit when I need to.

My promise to you is that in this new year, and in the many new years to follow, I will love myself more and with intention. I will turn back toward my creative side and find what else life has to offer that can make me happy, and bring me joy. From now on, I will allow myself to fully embrace the beauty that comes with going to new places and trying new things. Food won’t just be food, I will taste every seasoning, and every crisp in every bite. I will be fully present in the moments I experience, and in the moments I create. I will break generational curses that run through my blood, so they don’t trail into the blood of my future seed. I will heal my inner teenager from what harmed us all those years before. And lastly, I will remember you and honor you, old me, because I wouldn’t be here without the experiences you went through, the pain you endured. It was the sacrifices you made that have allowed me to be able to be in love with myself today.

I am forever grateful.