Going back in time (writer's workshop).

I have been a spectator of the writer's workshop over at Mama's Losin' It for a while now, and I'm finally taking the plunge and becoming a participant. I actually linked up last week too, but that was just because my post happened to fit one of the prompts, not because I had planned it. This week I chose prompt #5)  Find a photo of yourself taken 10 years ago and display it on your blog along with a current photo. How have you changed since the day that photo was taken?

10 years ago I was a junior in high school, fall 2002; Showing off my new baby journal Christmas morning, 2012

 Physically, I don't think I have changed much at all (although I certainly will be changing over the next few months). My hair is the same (by coincidence), I still wear the same size, and my face is mostly the same. I have a few new lines around my eyes, but I still get ID'd all of the time. A few years ago I was chatting with the butcher at the grocery store, and he asked me if I was in still in school. I replied that I was senior (meaning college senior, and an old one at that, since I was a returning student), and he responded by asking me where I was planning on going to college! Even after explaining it to him, I don't think he believed I was out of high school. It used to bother me that I looked so young, but I'm getting to the point where it is more flattering than annoying. I do anticipate getting some dirty looks and comments about being too young once my baby belly starts showing, but I think I will mostly just find those amusing.

One thing I find interesting about this challenge is that it's only by coincidence that I have the same hair in both pictures. It's currently my natural color, and I haven't changed it much over the last two years, but before that it went through almost every transformation in the book. In the last 10 years my hair has been jet black, bleach blonde, auburn, blue, green, bright red, orange, and I'm sure a few other shades that I'm forgetting. I permed it (that was a disaster), had a bob, and cut it very short twice. In a way, I feel like that reflects the (non-physical) changes I've made in my life over the last ten years as well.

Of course I am not exactly the same as I was in high school (that would be depressing). Happily, I am more confident, more responsible, and happier. What I mean is that over the last ten years I went through some stages where I was very much not myself. There were times when I was trying to be someone else in order to impress people (never a good idea), and times when I didn't really like myself, so I pretended to someone I wasn't (an even worse idea). I'm not proud of everything I did, and I ended up losing some very good friends over that time. However, it did teach me that there was no point in pretending to be something I'm not. Now I feel like I am the same person I was 10 years ago, but I am more fully myself. I have made big changes going from adolescence to adulthood, and I have matured, but I am not a different person.

I link up to these parties.