The past and the present

Well, it hasn't been snowing out today and it turned out to be a nice day!  The temp is around 30, but the sun is SHINING and the wind is quiet, so it's a beautiful day out!

Last night, I was getting ready for a paper that I have to write tonight about my personal and professional ethics code and I had a nice thing happen!  A few years ago, I was really struggling with feeling down and I was also battling a lot of anxiety. It was a rough deal. Through it all, though, I kept a journal and I allowed myself to write whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and let me tell ya, I wrote about anything and everything.  Last night I decided to sit down and look through the journal to see if there was anything in there that would add to my paper.  Wow...I was SO amazed.  My "rough time" was during 2006 and when I read through some of the things that I was feeling and experiencing, I felt like it was just yesterday that I was experiencing everything and that time period came flooding back to me.  When I stop and look at the date on the journal entries, however, I think, "Wow.  That was a long time ago.  I'm so far from that place!"

What I felt truly thankful for is that things are SO different than what they were at that time.  I've made some significant changes that altered a LOT of things in my life and I feel so much more balanced than I was during that tumultuous time.  I also felt like even though I have an "off" day once in awhile, my entire life is altogether better.  I am no where near the place that I was in during 2006 and I'm so thankful for that!!

I was glad to read about the past and to see a vivid improvement with the present and I just found myself wanting to take all of the lessons and changes with me into the future.  Just because things are good now doesn't mean that it's smooth sailing for the future.  Hopefully I can take with me what I've learned, though, so that maybe I don't make some of the same mistakes or wrestle with some of the same things that I struggled with before.  I just hope that I can learn from the past and make the future brighter, better and richer.