How things can change in a year. It's not long, a year. 365 days. Yet every year now, I look back and everything is different.
Last year it was my 21st birthday coming up, I had a party planned with all my family and friends, I was about to graduate, I lived at home. Things were hard, I was full of uncertainty, but also hope. Sadness was just beginning to lose its hold on me, and I felt ready for this new adventure.
Now look at me. Its my 22nd in nine days, and I will be completely alone. I am adrift in Europe, with no direction. I'm braver now, more certain of myself.
It's an adventure, but a lonely one.
Perhaps that's what I need. I need this time to grow into myself, into the adult I want to be. Leave that child behind, her broken hopes, her naivety. She didn't know what the world would hold for her, and she was trapped because of it.
When you are free from expectations, you can do all the things you only dared to think about long into the night, and never voice. Who can judge you now, when no-one knows who you are?
I can be anyone, and maybe, just maybe I can finally be myself.
