Different.

I feel so different from who I was. I think differently, and I respond to things differently. I care or don't care differently. I am learning that life...is a learning experience. Life is not a pass or fail - It's a how you play the game thing.

I feel older. Sometimes wiser. Sometimes...not at all.

I don't think I am less dramatic...maybe more. I feel like I can open up more. For some reason, I have had this wall of insecurity up...I built it slowly over the years. Brick by brick. It was okay because I could still see daylight, and smell the open air. I could still hear the hustle bustle of the outside world. One year, I didn't want to hear or smell, or see the outside world. I didn't want to look into the face of reality. I felt bruised and broken. I put up many bricks that year, and several years after. But my wounds healed, and I went to look again for daylight, and I found that I had built my wall so very thick. I didn't know if daylight still existed. Instead of fighting. I sat down inside my wall and cried, and moaned, and I waited for someone to rescue me. I waited for an absolution. When no one came, I knew I had to be the one to tear down my own wall.
And, that is what I have been doing. Little by little the wall is coming down. Sometimes I forget what I am doing, and pour the mortar for new bricks, and sometimes I even get them in place before I realize I really do cherish the daylight. After all the darkness...I am seeing the daylight with different eyes. Everything is different, even though it is the same. I am different.

Faint traces of scars sometimes seem to re-appear, but I don't feel like I need to hide them... I don't feel like I need to flaunt them either. They are simply there. Part of who I have become. I am not even sure I know yet who I have become...but I do know...It's definitely different.