Sometimes we find ourselves in a place that is familiar, but we couldn’t feel more out of place. As I’ve found, this happens in life. It’s never fun to feel out of place or different. It’s never fun to feel like you don’t belong. One day you look around at the friends you loved, the places you loved and you realize they are just not your thing anymore. When this happens it’s easy to feel like something is wrong with you. But I’m here to tell you something, sometimes we outgrow who we used to be and that’s okay.
It’s okay that the person who used to be your best friend isn’t your best friend anymore
What I’ve found is that there are always people in your life that are meant to be there for you at certain times. Sometimes you need those friends who are super light and fun and other times you need your roommate who will sit at home with you and watch movies for hours. For the first few years of college I needed those people I could go out and have fun with and who would let me push my boundaries from time to time. Now I need those close, trustworthy friends who are responsible and inspire me to be successful. It doesn’t mean that one is good and one is bad. It just means that they are who I need right now. Listen to that. Who do you need right now? You might not talk to an old friend as much or spend as much time with them but it doesn’t mean you love them any less. The people who are supposed to, will come back around. People have a funny way of coming back into your life, in funny little ways and at the most unexpected times. If you aren’t friends right now, don’t sweat it. Don’t waste your time making a list of what they did wrong or what you could have done to save your friendship. Just enjoy the people you’ve got in your life, right now. Life is going to move forward and the people who are around you are too, sometimes in the blink of an eye.
It’s okay that you don’t like to do what you once liked to do
In fact, that’s great! If our interests never changed we’d all still be sitting around in our diapers, playing with Play Doe with smashed up peas all over our faces. People grow at different rates. Some of us ran across the stage at high school graduation ready to move on and some of us act like we’re still in high school; see what I mean? People grow and that’s very important. How else are you supposed to find what you like if you don’t go and try new things? It was hard to be the only one of my close friends going abroad for a semester last year. No body understood what I was doing, or was as excited as I was. That semester was very lonely, just because my focus was on going abroad (getting accepted, saving up, etc..) and my friends were all doing other things. It wasn’t until I experienced the most wonderful place in the world and met some of the best friends of my life that I realized the pay-off of changing what I was used to doing, even if it wasn’t the most popular. Do what you love, even if it wasn’t what you used to love doing, even if it isn’t what everyone is doing, because the pay-off is incredible.
It’s okay that what you believe changes
History has shown us time and time again that belief systems evolve to best fit the times and circumstances. I believe this happens on an individual level just as much. If you sat me down freshman year and asked me what I thought about romantic relationships I would have told you I though they were black and white and that if someone messed up you left them right then and there, no second chances. Until of course I knew people personally who cheated on their significant others, who genuinely messed up, who mended there relationships and everything worked out. Or until I stuck around and decided to forgive someone and give them a second chance and they made up for it in every way possible. You live and you learn and it couldn’t be truer. Don’t feel bad for standing for something your old self never would have. There’s something to be said about acknowledging a mistake you made in the past, and forgiving yourself because you couldn’t have known any better. If people don’t get it, so what? They’ll eventually have something that changes their mind forever and everything comes full circle again, I promise.
Changing is uncomfortable. If we look at the world around us, it’s the most natural and inevitable thing about this life but for whatever reason us humans resist it with all we’ve got. I often think about a snake shedding his skin. That can’t be comfortable with skin shedding from your side, it must be sad losing a whole part of yourself, but when you’re ready to accept it and let it go, you’re a whole new, beautiful, fresh you.
