Looking at my high school self in comparison to my college self, I feel like it's two very different individuals. One individual who was scared and a bit of an outsider. And the other, who I am now, who has been broken battered and shattered but is a together again. I feel like although for all my contemporaries their life began in high school, they went to parties, hung out and lived life.Everything they got to then I'm doing now. Like piercing my ears and dressing the way I want. Having control over my life. They got control over their lives and mine is just coming together now. They all had everything together although my story is drastically different than theirs. I grew up in a home with limited financial resources. I grew up in a tense environment than anyone my age did. I grew up seeing a lot, and had to mature quickly. For the first half of high school from freshman to junior years of high school, my father did not have a job. We are still rebuilding our lives. He is an engineer but could not find anything stable for years. But no one knew that; I never let anyone know I was going through so much from 12 to 18. No one that young should ever experience as much but I did. My family suffered a lot of financial difficulties when I was growing up and it does change you. But I realize now that my path is different, My life didn't begin till I graduated high school and began my college journey.

I didn't realize it then but I know it now. Part of me, the quiet person with no confidence, is gone. I've gone through enough in my life now to be confident. The old me had to die and fade away to for the new me to exist.I feel like after high school I had to be reborn. It was rebirth, college helped me become alive again. I figured out myself who I was and what I wanted. I never was truly living till college. Who I once was, was a shattered and broken person who had to be reborn. To be born a real person. I have to say I am a late bloomer and everything I've wanted it's been coming to me now.

Another thing I've just recently come to terms with everything in my past and embracing it not running away from it. I felt like when I first was in college it was about running away from high school and my past and kind of blocking away the pain of not being able to finish high school on my own terms. I felt like I had to abandon that part of myself so I could live and move on in life. If I didn't let go of my old self and how I felt I could have never been who I am now. I had to let go of any shame I felt or anything that held me back in the past. But at the same time I can't fully be with happy with myself now until I am able to be okay with the past. I am definitely more comfortable to be in touch from people from my past. Whether that is on social media or even just seeing someone in public and saying hello. I'm grown and my life is now in my control.