Reflection...

I spent the evening wrapped in reverie and nostalgia. I took a walk down memory lane to quote a tired, but true phrase. I poured over old journals, yearbooks, and notes from high school. It was surreal. To see myself from the lens of, well, myself. It was painful and it was humorous. To replay scenes and memories in my mind. To recall emotions evoked by specific events. To laugh at myself and laugh with myself yet again. To cringe at the elementary thought processes that were characteristic of my high school brain. I am not sure if it's comforting or discouraging to realize that many of my journal entries could have been written yesterday. In that, so many of the same struggles and vices persist. They seem to have clung even tighter with time, like some sort of parasite that grows larger and stronger when it is left alone to grow and fester in your dark and secret insides. However, I was also encouraged to see what things have changed, what vices have not persisted. This is the benefit of reflection: self awareness. Why else do we record our lives in such ways? If not to learn from the past and from our own poor decisions and patterns? I suppose I have some more reflecting to do...