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Forgiving Myself For The Things I Didn’t Achieve
Why it’s sometimes ok to let go of past dreams.
Taped to my mirror is a single sheet of paper folded up with the date August 8th, 2022 written in orange ink.
When I turned 25 last year I made the pact that by my 26th birthday my life would be different.
This sheet of paper contains all of the things I wanted to accomplish in the year. Some things were simple such as cutting my hair short despite my parents wanting me to grow it long into the rapunzel locks of my youth and some things were more challenging such as replacing dollar for dollar the income I had made before diving off the deep end and deciding to become a full-time writer.
Of all the things written in this letter to my future self, I didn’t accomplish a single one, and with the looming knowledge that my birthday is a month away, my mood began to plummet every time I glanced at the orange ink reminding me of my failures for the past year.
If I give myself a moment to think about it I’m sure I can fill plenty of notebooks will all the other things in my life that I wanted to achieve and didn’t.
I’ve always been a writer, telling and writing stories as soon as I could hold a pencil, but I never thought of it as a dream that could be achieved.
