Like many of you, I spent the holidays in visiting my childhood home. And like many of you, my parents consistently send me home with mementos and items from my childhood bedroom whenever I go visit them. This year’s stash was a pile of journals from middle school and high school. Reviewing them was fascinating.

I keenly remember the feelings I felt in some of those entries. I remember being SO upset when a friend started dating a guy I had a huge crush on. I remember when I was angry at my mom and her treatment of me compared to my brother. I remember how deep those feelings were and how in the moment, each of those frustrations was the biggest and worst thing going on in my world.

And every single one of those things resolved. Every one of those major events turned into minor events with time. I can look back on those incidents now and smile and chuckle at how silly I was and how little perspective I had. That doesn’t mean those feelings weren’t entirely valid and significant at the time. But as time wore on, those things didn’t carry the big feelings they used to. There are new things and other priorities and other frustrations. The feelings are still big. But I know these will pass too. I know the world will keep turning and the thing that is making me crazy today will be a minor blip on the radar a year from now.

This is one of the reasons I love journaling – and one of the reasons I started this blog. Getting to see how far I’ve come helps me believe that I’ll get through today’s struggle too. I have a 100% success rate at moving on and getting through hard times.

Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. In an interview for his 80th birthday he said the following and it has kept me going so far and will keep me moving forward

“In all your years and all your travels,” I asked, “what do you think is the most important thing you’ve learned about life?”

He paused a moment, then with the twinkle sparkling under those brambly eyebrows he replied: “In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. In all the confusions of today, with all our troubles . . . with politicians and people slinging the word fear around, all of us become discouraged . . . tempted to say this is the end, the finish. But life — it goes on. It always has. It always will. Don’t forget that.