Let's get sentimental

Life isn't what I thought it would be.

That doesn't have to be something scary, a monster lurking around corners, waiting to tear me to bits.

So life turns out to be a bit different than I imagine...if I'm honest, most of the things in my life that I treasure most are things that didn't turn out at all like I hoped.

I'm not the prettiest girl. It's a fact. It used to be a fact that burned at my soul and ate away at my happiness, but now I have come to recognize that my lack of beauty directly contributed to the beauty I cultivated in my mind. I am the person I am today because I didn't really have friends my own age and was awkward and shy and could never really relate to my peers. All of the things I love most about myself, the things that will last long past my good looks I may have had, all of them grew up in that absence of physical beauty.

I think sometimes we hold to certain dreams without realizing that they aren't really the dreams that matter at all. The ones that really matter will set us free, they will hold us up high and set us above the clouds, where the sun will warm us and light the way.

Life isn't what I thought it would be... and I couldn't be more grateful for that.