25 years

The First 25 Years of Your Life Shape the Person Who You’ll Be
For the Rest of Your Life

I read this a few years ago and for some reason the quote stuck in my mind. I didn’t necessarily believe it at the time, but I couldn’t forget it; I guess in a way, deep down I wanted to know if the following few years would actually make a big difference in who I am.

Back then, I really thought I had found myself. I thought that I knew exactly what I wanted from life and that I knew how I would get it.

Well, looking through my older posts, I can see that I was wrong. I’ve come to realize how much I changed over the last few years. I have matured a lot from the time I was 20. Although I obviously retain many of the values and the traits that had shaped me my entire life, many other aspects of my personality changed.

I can’t say that it is necessarily a better change; to say the truth, I lost a lot of the qualities who made me what some might call a ‘better person.’ I used to be a lot more romantic, a lot more positive, and a hell of a lot nicer all around. I have in a way lost a bit of my patience and become a little angrier. I am a little more jaded – less positive, but more realistic.

I’ve become more critical, more sarcastic, a little more outspoken when I am unhappy and a little more stubborn. These qualities were always there, but they have definitely become more prominent in the past few years.

There are obvious specific events in my life that pushed me to become this person that is rough at the edges (if you read post entries, especially around November 2006 you’ll know one of the main events of which I’m talking about). it kind of sucks that I was shaped so strongly by events that happened in my life which were out of my control, but I guess that’s the way it always is. I adapted to my environment, and that is what my environment required me to become.

Do I regret what I’ve gone through and who I’ve become? No. Being hurt did make me a little angrier at the world, but it also made me stronger. Now, things don’t really bother me as much as they would have when I was younger and more impressionable. Things slide of my back a lot quicker – this has helped me not only in my relationship, but also in my career and in dealing with friends and people coming in and out of my life.

In  a way though, I wish that I had met my boyfriend Justin before all of this happened. I wish he could have had the opportunity to meet the me before I became so jaded. I was a lot more romantic and hopeful, and I think he would have enjoyed that person. Or maybe not; after all, he is with me because he fell in love with the person that I am – the person who was shaped during the first 25 years of my life.

I, for one, am perfectly satisfied with that person.

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