Eighth Post.

It's funny how much can change in a minute, an hour, a day... let alone 18 years.

"Just be yourself. Wait, who is that again?"

Birthdays come and go and they won't stop coming until you're dead. I've always found them funny because you expect to feel... different, after each one. Yet, more or less, the chances are you're going to be exactly the same and feel horribly disappointed. Or happy that you're the same, I guess.

As my birthday countdown dwindles to two more days, I feel myself anticipating something, but I'm not sure if its a "change" in me that I'm anticipating (even if I know those don't happen). I constantly have flashbacks throughout the day, something I do to compare then and now. Whether it be a fond memory, a bad memory, or comparing how I reacted to a specific situation recently than to how I would've reacted or did react to it in my past, my history is something that stays fresh in my mind.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't live in the past. I've had a lot of struggles with that before, being stuck back there, one of the reasons that I'd blame for helping contribute to my destructiveness my freshman and sophomore year.

But, as I get closer to this age of the big 1-8, these flashbacks are going off the wall; my life flashes in my mind more times than a continuous shutter on a camera capturing the individual flaps of a hummingbird.

I've grown up alone, found an alternative way to not be lonely, became alone again, found yet another alternative, and now I find that I'm alone again. But this time around, I'm not making some half-assed alternative; my "alone-ness" has turned in to my independency.

It's hard to hear everyone saying to just "be yourself" growing up. Changes happen in so many ridiculous ways in such little time that saying to just "be yourself" is ironic. People get so caught up in trying to be themselves that they forget who they are.

The "You" now is different from the "You" that was began reading this.

Being yourself doesn't mean you need to stay the same. Being yourself means being comfortable with living with you... cuz then again, if you can't, who will?

I've realized I've come a real weird squiggly path, and I have a feeling its only going to get squigglier. But, for the first time in my life, I think I can proudly say that I'm comfortable.

I'm going to be careful with who I'm going to bring close in my life now; I'm not going to let myself go back to what I was. This doesn't mean I'm going to shove everyone away, not socialize the way I do now, or really change from what you know as me.

My life has always been an open book with an unwritten ending. Some of you will be a part of the book, and some of you will read it.

Either way, I appreciate you being a part of my life.

Thank you for pushing me this far everyone; now its time for me to push myself.