Documenting your thoughts and experiences is really important. The ability to look back and reflect on a time that has passed can provide powerful lessons and allow you to grow and appreciate where you have been, and where you still have to go.

Tumblr is one of those websites that allows its users to manipulate the platform in almost any way they see fit. You have the option to write content, post media, and share your perspective with the world around you in creative and interesting ways. I used Tumblr a lot when I was growing up, specifically in grades eight and nine – utilizing a password protection on my blog to make sure no one could access all the personal thoughts and experiences I was documenting as I grew up. I wrote down a lot of really interesting things during my time with Tumblr, and described them in detail. It may seem ridiculous but I wrote down my first kiss, what kinds of things I was studying or thinking about on any given day, or even who I had a crush on at the time. I used Tumblr like an online diary, documenting my life for whatever reason any other school aged kid feels the need to keep a diary, because it’s nice to have an outlet for expression.

It was not until recently that I came across my old Tumblr. It was by chance, and completely unexpected. I had forgotten all about my old online diary, being that most of my posts were written around the ages of 13-15, and because around the end of my freshman year of high school I stopped writing. I had miraculously managed to correctly guess the still password protected URL and after more than five years, was finally getting a glimpse into the old me, and how I viewed my life back in the day. It was like opening a time capsule dedicated solely to you and your life experiences, and was a really harrowing undertaking. I was able to reflect on my (very thoroughly) documented days of school, and the emotions I had been feeling throughout my time writing for the site. What was so interesting was seeing just how different I had viewed the world back then, and how much I had since that time, grown and matured as writer, and as an individual. I am on a completely different intellectual plane than 14-year-old me (as to be expected) and I can only describe the discovery of my long lost perspective as transformative. In understanding how I had felt then, I gathered a greater appreciation of how I had made it to the now. The opportunity to reflect on the various minute details that made it possible to reach my current accomplishments, only served to clear and stabilize the path ahead.

In having the opportunity to return to the headspace 14-year-old me had been in, I was allowed to grow, not only in my understanding of my development as a person, but in how to understand to continue to flourish as an adult. In seeing how much I have accomplished from then to now, my outlook on the world is brighter – I still have much farther to go and I hope years from now, 40-year-old me can look back on this article and feel grateful for this very perspective and where it will take me next.