Looking Back on Yourself

I keep a kind of journal. It's not kept every day and it's not really a journal of what I did - I guess it's a kind of mood map of my life. I write when I feel happy, or sad, or lost. It's funny, because it doesn't really include anything about the days that live and die without event or reason - it's kind of chaotic, I guess, because it's only ever way way up or way way down.

Today I woke up feeling really joyful. It's a mood I get in occasionally where the world just feels so wonderful and I am very in tune with my body, and my heart feels like it is swelling to twice its size. I get a bit teary and sentimental and full of sunshine. I went to write in my journal and made the mistake of flipping backwards and reading some passages from a couple years ago, where I went through a fairly serious depression.

So now I'm sitting here, and I just feel so heartbroken for teenage me and her twisted sense of self worth, and all the blackness she kept in her heart. It's funny because I've changed so much as I've got older and I barely recognise that person any more. It's like stepping up and away from yourself and looking back at your own body - I know, logically, that she is me, but she has such a different way of reasoning and responding to things that she is unfamiliar.

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this? Maybe through a journal or home videos, or an old photo? What does age and wisdom look like to you?

xx B