I am not the same person I was a year ago before starting college. I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the school year. I am not the same person I was yesterday. I am constantly reinventing myself each day and this isn't a bad thing.

I am not who I used to be simply because I am not that person anymore. I am learning and growing and experiencing and living; really, truly living. I am seeing life through fresh eyes each day, like a child who is born anew. I am becoming. I am not yet exactly sure what, but I know I am becoming so much more, so much more than any of us could have expected. I am a work-in-progress, and I know it is not self-righteous to see how far I have come and be proud.

I have traveled across landscapes of where I started out, where I was told I would never be, and exactly the places that would prove everyone wrong. I have worked for this and I am so much better for it. I am not the same person I used to be because that person does not exist. I have a past, but that does not define me so much as give me waves to ride into the ocean shores of my own possibility.

I am on a hot air balloon of my own soul, watching and observing and understanding all that I can from the personal separation that individual thought processes have to offer. I am fitting into the skies of my being. I am connecting the stars of my dreams with the grounded, humble earthly plains of where I have been. I am running barefoot across muddied grounds of trust in the soils that will produce the fruits of my own personhood, and yet taking time to feel the soft, damp grasses along the way, admiring each step of the process.

I am the caterpillar that grows amongst its siblings in the cradled nest of a safe bush of green leaves and thrives in the goodbye, in the venturing across forest grounds to find something more, to inch up to tree tops that will help cultivate the finest chrysalises to enable myself to fly with the biggest flutters, and never look back until it is time to migrate south for the winter alongside the ones who made all of my being possible.

I am the flash of lightning that wakes the sleepy from their beds and calls them to join in the truth, the sound of the thunder that invites the downtrodden to play along with the tune, the raindrops that even the most uptight city walker on their way to work doesn't mind letting comb their hair and become a confetti celebrating the party of their life.

I am not who I was yesterday, or the day before, or the year before, or even ten years before because I am the now. I am you, and you are living. You are living so much so that your past and your future could never touch you. You are exactly the you that has been created for this moment, and that person is beautiful. Do not be afraid of the ones who question why you have changed, for they are simply trying to understand a process you've known all along. You are entirely your own, in this moment, becoming your life in all its fullness.

You are the first blooming flower in the spring that is just discovering how amazing it feels to grow taller, producing it's largest leaves, and coloring the gardens of life with its most vibrant of colors. Do not falter with the harsh winds and storms of springtime; dance, grow, be.