One of the greatest privileges in life is to see ourselves change and grow over time. Most of it happens without us ever noticing, in small, inconspicuous things like switching to that nice type of paper one begins to use when one writes more, or drinking two cups of black coffee instead of a vanilla iced latte. Change is but a series of small decisions made every day that end up compounding over time. And if you’re like me, a collector of things, it’s a lot easier to see how much you’ve really changed.

My terabytes of archival footage dating back to the day I was born. My room full of sticky notes filled with thoughts, lyrics, poems, and quotes that resonated with me at the time. My diary entries, both in the form of written nonsense and video ramblings dating back to 2010. My catalog of films, books, and musical playlists. I think those things say a lot about a person, what we pay attention to. As a kid, I hoarded ideas as if my life depended on it. I loved making collections of things. Pulling anything and everything that may have resembled a part of myself. I couldn’t figure out why I felt compelled to do this at the time, but looking back, I think I’ve figured out why. They were the only tangible things that could trace back to who I was at the time.

As a teenager, I had always felt this dissonance between my thoughts and what came out into the real world. Be it in the form of speaking, writing, or even art projects, I always felt like I fell short. Collecting ideas and words from everywhere else seemed to help though. It’s quite a magical feeling when you learn that most of your feelings and emotions have been felt before and that you are not alone. There really is an entire world to be found in all the art that humans have made in the past.

Growing up has been this quest to understand; to put a bunch of jumbled-up words into something that makes sense. I struggled to make sense of a lot of my thoughts and constantly worried things out of my control. Funny enough, it took the longest time for me to come to terms with the idea that not everything will make sense. That I, along with the entirety of the universe, will continue to change, making it impossible to define a sense of self. However, I can’t deny the feeling I get when something as small as finding a song or a line in a book captures exactly how I once felt in a moment. In those hard-to-come-by instances, I feel more whole.

A few years ago, I moved out of my childhood home to a new state. I learned how to live on my own and started over in many different aspects. During this process, I’ve seen a shift in my own understanding of what it means to find one’s self. It’s a confronting act of self-examination that almost anyone would like to avoid but is necessary for growth.

At 24, I’m realizing just how formative those earlier years of my youth were. A time marked by confusion and uncertainty… but at last, a baseline before we add all the noise, all the chatter of the real world. It’s quite evident in the way that we always come back to old photographs or entries and feel at home. A lot of the memorabilia I saved were like breadcrumbs that led me back to a place I had partially forgotten about.

Reflecting on this version of myself writing this right now, I can say that it was the uncertainty of it all that scared me. But by that same token, as I write on a much larger sheet of paper than before, I find myself still filling the page with new and novel ideas that I never thought of before.

I think it’s a very special thing to find yourself between who you once were and who you’re becoming.