Coming home for the holidays brings me back to an old routine that was once so familiar. That routine included listening to the young boy across the street that is barely a teenager; either A. blare his music, or B. play music on one of his instruments. Both of these I thoroughly enjoy because it takes me back to his age, in which a big part of it was discovering music and my love for it. I noticed his taste revolved around 90's grunge as I heard it beat from his house.

It made me wonder what he was currently going through. It made me wonder if he was finding comfort in that genre of music like I did at that age. I begin to think about the differences between our worries. What seems so big to him right now will have no relevance in six years when he’s my age, but that doesn’t decrease his worry right now.

I also think about the similarities in our worries. Though we have a pretty large age gap, we both might be worrying about school, or we could both be worrying about things going on in our friendships.

I often wish I could go back in time and tell 12-year-old me that most of whatever she is worried about will not matter. I wish I could have spent less of my childhood worrying and more of it enjoying being young; however, hindsight is 20/20. I wish I could go back and hold the hand of the girl in seventh grade who felt like she would never make it through whatever seemed so important at that time.

When I was 12-years-old, everything seemed like a climb. It felt like I was 12 for longer than a year. I often think of it as one of the hardest years of my life. My parents went through a divorce, and I was going through some major transitions. It almost seemed like I was changing lives. Though it seems like nothing now, it was something back then. It was something that stressed me to the max.

Reliving those moments of worrisome often help me out now. It makes me realize that some of the worries I have now won’t matter. My worries’ importance has increased, but for the most part, everything I find myself in a panic about will have no relevance to me other than as a learning experience. I’m learning that I just need to let go of the things that I cannot change, and take responsibility for the things that I can change.

I think about going back and changing how my life went often. Sometimes I don’t even think about changing things; I think about just reliving things a couple more times because if I did change some things, I might not be the person I am today; the person that I worked so hard to become. No matter what, I will have my worries, but it has become easier to find some contentment in the midst of all the crazy things that go on in my life.

Anxiety has lingered in my bones from a young age, and I know there are those whose anxiety is even worse than from when they were younger. I hope you know that you can make it through whatever you are faced with and that even though your worries won’t be relevant in the future, they are relevant now. They matter, and you matter. I pray that one day you can feel at ease and relieved.