Different, yet exactly the same.

(In honor of being 12)

2005

When a cranky eight year old Jordyn used to complain about being so tiny, she was told to not be sad at what she was because time would go so quickly. Two blinks later she would be all grown up.

A few weeks ago I gathered with some of my longest friends. It's an odd statement to make, because I could of sworn it was just yesterday we were introduced, yet here we were ten blinks later. We used to spend every day together, just silly 11 year olds who spoke with the voice of false experience. We had our snow globe life completely figured out, before swiftly throwing it up into the air and having it come down with a crack.

We all left that snow globe; leaking out in different directions, towards different cities and down different paths. Months upon months would swirl by in our new worlds but every year we would make it a mission to reassemble in one form or another. 

This time it was different.

We weren't simply hanging out to reminisce and reconnect, we were gathering at the beginning stages of each others next step. To celebrate graduation and change, we were linking arms to pull each other on to our next chapters.

Moving abroad or across the country, going to law school, or jumping feet first into a bonafide big girl career in the big city...we were all taking steps towards our next phase. 

As I drove away that day, slightly (very...) pink from the sun and full of happy memory, I thought of those little girls we once were, bigger than our boots and over confident on life, speaking of the future as if it was forever away.  Now we were so much different, yet exactly the same. Those same young girls but now we had confidence by the hands of experience, closeness by the hands of the past and opportunity by the hands of all we were. 

and I can't wait to see what comes next.