This is one of my more wordier posts, I hope you don't mind. I'm really making an effort to incoporate  myself more intimately in to this blog from time to time. I hope you enjoy and can relate to some extent.



Being only 19, I think it's a little ridiculous to claim that I may be going through a mid-life crisis. I mean, what have I really done to date that's even significant? I haven't lived enough life, in fact I am only on the brink of my journey. Yet, I find myself feeling at my best when I have adequate time to reflect back on to who I used to be. Though my life has been fairly short, that doesn't mean I haven't been subjected to countless phases of life already; that I haven't grown evolved or changed with rapid succession. My best friend C always likes to say that, "life is just a series of finding yourself, losing yourself, and then finding yourself again." It's a series of rediscovery, and something about that hit home for me.

From a very young age, I've always seemed to have a good grasp on my wants, needs, and the exact direction I wanted my life to head when I got older. I always knew where I was going, until it was time to actual get going there. When 'real life' started to take shape my sense of direction seemed lost. I was fumbling around unsure of what I wanted or which was the best in which to get me to this unknown destination.

I do have drive. I do have passion. I do have opportunity. I don't have a direction, except for up. I want to go up, continue to learn and grow and evolve as I had been doing. I guess my whole life I had been making choices and fantasizing of a place in my life where I could have the chance to grow upward. I want to go up and be better than what I envisioned. Go upward with a good career, a decent lifestyle. Keep my head well above water and every decision I had made was to put me in a place so that I could go up in knowledge, life, and potential happiness. I had not lead myself to a fork in the road, but rather rooted myself to a place where I could grow.

When I was home over spring break I took a good long look around my former bedroom. I looked at everything I had chosen to leave behind me. One item in particular on my desk caught my eye. I had been overlooking it for ages. It was a large maroon binder, hidden under a basket filled with neatly stacked papers. It was a large three ringed, fully fantastic binder with more pockets and space than I could ever fill. I doubt I could find a binder like this nowadays. In my pre-teen script written in Sharpie on the front cover was the words, 'Ashlee's Writing Binder.'

My heart swelled up and out of my chest. I'd used this binder since 5th grade. C and I had each had one. Even in the 5th grade, I found my niche in a group of writers. I unzipped the binder carefully. It had been so long since I'd cracked this thing open. My whole being welled with excitement as I carefully began to sort through the mass of papers, sketches, and magazine clippings.

Well preserved, I'd left poetry, stories, sketches, and images that I'd cherished. I re-read a lot of my old work and beamed. I had such passion, such direction, and drive. I had a knack for being myself, if that even makes any sense. I panned through my stories, and wondered why had I stopped writing. I swear, I haven't written an actual story in over two years. Writing had once been such a magical hobby for me. I could clack away at the computer for hours at a time. I found art from junior high and high school. Memories crashed back in to me. I recaptured a small fragment of myself and my life and I felt so overwhelmingly good after re-discovering a few pieces.

Some things may get left behind, but it's the magic in rediscovering them that make them matter most, I suppose.