when it all changed

This summer, my twentieth summer, has been far more significant than previous summers. I feel like this is the summer that I will look back on and say, "That was it. That's when it all changed."

How many moments in your life can you pinpoint like that? Despite all of the change I've gone through in my short 20 years on this earth, I can't really conjure up specific moments that I remember everything changing. So many things change little by little, so once everything is completely different than it was in the beginning, it's like nothing ever changed.

That's one thought too deep for an early Friday morning.

What exactly changed though? Besides nothing - and everything. While this summer I have figured a lot out, I've also realized that I know nothing. Okay, so that might be hyperbole. But I don't know as much as I thought I did - and I didn't even think I knew all that much...you do the math. It sure ain't pretty.

I've learned. I've grown. I've changed. And still, there is so much I don't know. It's not that I want to know everything right now, or ever, really. I just feel like once I figure something out, I lose something else - either because my new way of thinking causes me to have to look at something else differently, or because what I just discovered introduces me to something else to think about.

It's a beautiful, never-ending cycle. I know that it's one I'll be dealing with for the rest of my life, and I know that most of the time, I'll be able to handle that. Even now, I'm handling it. I'm slowly but surely piecing together the balance of it all, and soon deep thoughts such as these will be acknowledged, considered, and then I'll continue on with whatever it is I'm doing.

I've started to really appreciate the complexity of my thoughts. Yes, these thoughts leave me with more questions than answers, but they also leave me wanting more.

I want to learn more, to question more, to explore more.

I want to step further outside of myself and really take in the world around me.

And these exciting new transformations all took place during my twentieth summer...the summer when it all changed.

♥ abigail