Last week, I was laying in bed, reading through blog posts on my bloglovin’ reader. I had just read Elise’s post about things she’d tell her 22 year old self, when I realized that one of my blog posts that was supposed to post the following week, actually posted that day. Before we continue, here a few things that you need to know in order for this story to make sense. 

1. I noticed that the post had gone live because it showed up in my reader. I haven’t shared the details yet or promoted it, but you can use bloglovin’ to keep up with my blog posts. If you use it (or if you’d like an easy way to keep up with your favorite blogs), please follow me there!  

2. Even though it may appear easy, blogging is actually quite a bit of work. It takes several hours just to make one post happen. For the past couple of months, my assistant (who is fabulous by the way) has been helping me make sure my posts actually happen. I write the content, take photos, plan out the links/format, and then she sets up the post on WordPress and schedules it to publish.  Most of the time, getting the post ready to share with the world takes much longer than the actually writing. Having Taylor’s help with this, has been a tremendous help in making sure I post regularly.  

When I saw that the post had gone live before I meant for it to, I cringed. After all, the post wasn’t finished. Before this discovery, I had spent a little time thinking about my 22 year old self. My 22 year old self would have panicked. I would have immediately called Taylor and had her take the post down. I would have told her to be more careful and I would have made sure that never happened again. Not only would my 22 year old self have reacted this way, I think my 26 year old self would have too. 

My 28 year old self emailed Taylor to let her know the post went live accidentally and what we could do to watch for that sort of thing next time. I ended the email with, “Btw…this isn’t a big deal and I’m totally not upset about it. Just wanted to point it out for next time. Love you!” 

After hitting send, I realized that my 28 year old response to this little issue was much different than my 22 year old response would have been. I certainly want us to pay close attention to details like this, but I knew this wasn’t a tragic event. The post would be just fine without adding the extra photos I was waiting on.

As I thought about the significance of this small event, I realized that we are constantly changing and growing into the type of people we want to become. I feel like the past two years have been simply monumental in my personal growth, a fact that I’ve really struggled to put into words. This short, little email in itself shows one of the larger changes I’ve experienced personally. While I still pay very close attention to detail, I understand that the details aren’t always that important. I also have to give people room for error. There’s not a perfect person in this world and those imperfections are often what makes life so fantastic. 

I think the moral of this seemingly pointless story is to realize (and celebrate) how ever-changing life is. As each day passes, we have the opportunity to grow into better and better versions of ourselves. With each new experience, we learn something new. We should take that knowledge and use it to become the best we can be. Even at the young age of 28, I can see how very much I’ve grown already. I love the person I am today compared to who I was at 22, and I’m certain that I’ll love 38 even more than 28. One of these days I’ll be able to wrap my head around some of the life-changing realizations I’ve had lately. For now, I’ll just celebrate this one small example. 

If you’d like some more inspirational reading, I had also just read this post that mentions not waiting for perfection. It seems like my Bloglovin’ feed was preparing me for that night’s discovery!

On another note, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who follows along here. Sometimes this place is filled with adventures from my life and decorating ideas. Other times it’s more of ramblings about the things swirling in my head. Either way, it means the world to me that you come and read. I love you all!