i am new. i am old.

I've been thinking a lot about growth today. the kind that happens on the inside while on the outside you're distracted by today and tomorrow and what happened yesterday. the kind that hits you like a ton of bricks when you're looking in the mirror getting ready one morning and something reminds you of a situation you once found yourself in. Its almost like time travel in a way. One of those, out of body experiences. Its always been funny to me that something as simple as a sound or a smell can carry you away and captivate you for an instance, remembering something thats one of the tiny puzzle pieces of your very soul.
I've done a lot of that growth in the last year. Its funny to me that life can change so much, so quickly. I'm not the same nolle i was at the end of last summer. I'm so much more. I've added on a whole year to my life, and its got to count for something. I've been more places, seen more things and lived and loved more than I ever have before. Someone please try to convince me how could i be the same, because I'm not. I still have all those pieces of who i used to be. but i've gathered so many more. the pictures completely different now. in fact, it changes every day. with every breath i take. I'm new. I'm old. I'm all the lovely things in between. I'm a forever changing always growing masterpiece. I don't know what the picture is yet but i like the way its unfolding before my eyes.
sometimes i wish i could stand like one of those european tour-guides with my little hand reaching as if to point and say, "See those dark spots there, happened when I got knocked down and struggled to pick myself back up. And see that golden spot that shines like the moon? That happened when i was least expecting it to, but its the most beautiful part of the picture. And here, all this stuff in the middle thats not dark grey, nor the brightest of the golds; it holds the good and the bad together and compliments them both making the picture balanced. This is the picture of my life so far." Then all those people who think they know me, and my story, and who i am, they'd finally see the whole picture. Not just the pieces of nolle from today. But the whole picture. The old. And the new. and the lovely in between.