Puzzle pieces.

As I started this blog, I tried several different titles. Finally I started typing the word "pieces" and everything seemed to fit in my mind. Puzzle pieces. Learning how to put them together when you feel like you're missing more than your fair share is always tough, but that's why this title was so perfect.

I feel like, finally, over the last year, I've started to find those elusive corner pieces and been able to navigate having about 400 pieces that look exactly the same. I know where I'm supposed to be, even if I'm pulled to the past every now and then. I know who my friends really are. Who I can trust, and who should have been left on the curb a long time ago. I figured out, mostly, what my future will hold, so long as I'm prepared to work towards the goals. I've finally started gaining momentum on my puzzle, and let me tell you, it's something exquisite in it's own right.

I wont lie, a year ago, this blog would never have exsisted. I wouldn't have thought twice about declaring that I knew where my path was leading. I was too busy second guessing and looking back. Then summer came, and went, and I realized something pivitol. If absence doesn't necessarily make the heart grow fonder, it definitely makes the heart grow wiser. Leaving Charlotte for these few months, and not returning to somewhere that was a major part of my past, helped me realize that I've made the right choices so far.

My only regrets, if you must give that name to them, are that I couldn't bring some of the best people I've ever known along for the ride. The people in my life from my high school years will always be some of the most important friends in my life. Being away from them made me realize different things. For one of them I've realized that I've never truly known a friend like this. Most friendships fizzled out over time once I moved away, as I did a lot when I was younger, but this one is steadfast; I'm sure we will be friends forever. Another has shown me that I had to only give this person a chance and they would show themself as one of the few tried and true friends I had. It's intriguing, the things you learn about someone once you've been separated from them. You learn to tell the difference between those who make up your hourglass, and those that are just pieces of sand sifting through it.

My puzzle is, in no way, complete, but it's off to a good start. I know where the next few years will lead me. Literature, Education, and England are all just stops on the tracks, albeit one's that I'm ecstatic about. I love that one summer has been able to teach me what years in school haven't been able to.