There are moments where you stare into the mirror and you just don't recognize the person staring back. The longer you stare the more you can't recognize yourself. Somehow you end up in a staring match between the person you actually are and the one you thought you were-- which would be really hard to explain if someone walked in on you whilst you were in a war with yourself. Luckily for me, this has never occurred (well the part of someone walking in) but I have often found myself staring back at someone I don't even know anymore.

I think this happens to many people when we come to these intersections in our lives where we are lost and confused. Whether it be a transition to jobs, schools or even phases of life. We all at one time lose self-recognition and become lost. Being lost I think is a fear that we have had since we were young but being lost isn't a bad thing. I relish in losing myself as it is a new time to reinvent who I am.

This happened this year; I became so lost, more than any other time in my life. Perhaps it's because it's my last year of high school or the fact that it feels like I grew up in 0.5 seconds but I feel entirely different. Yes, of course, people constantly change but I didn't think that it would feel like it happened overnight. I have somehow changed every part of me that I knew last year. I feel indifferent to the things I used to love. Whether it be soccer, theater or even my friends. I let go of so many people that I used to love and at first I thought it was me retreating--though I feel like those parts of me are already the past. I have put myself in a place where I am in between past and present. In other words, a transition between me being a kid and becoming an adult. That's the hard thing about being a teenager in the first place, as you are in this odd transition phase. Kind of like that awkward phase between a caterpillar and a butterfly. It's hard to know what to do or even who you are.

I think the sole reason I don't recognize myself is that I have moved on without knowing it yet. That I have accepted the fact that I'm going into a new stage in my life and I have to let the old things go. I have always been a prepared person and somehow I have already begun to prepare for me going on to college, though it may seem like detaching myself from the life I'm living now. I instead like to think of it as making room for new possibilities. Sometimes we have to let go in order to move forward.

It's okay not to always know who you are when you look in the mirror. It's also alright to be lost in your life. You can't find something great until you lose yourself. It's not self-detriment to let go but rather self-preservation.