Everyone Changes: A Letter #3

* A Letter is a heartfelt series of self-expression in the form of messages, written through the outpouring of emotions, feelings, experiences, and things that the writer cares about, but with an added twist and some creative exploration of each theme or topic. Though it may not mean that they are completely one hundred percent the truth, they are one hundred percent what the writer wishes to convey; and that makes them truer than any other versions of the truth, don't you think? *

We hear it all the time, that one single phrase that never seems to be far from a broken promise, a devastated outcry, a shattered heart. 

"You've changed."

The longer I look at those two measly words, the more fearful I become, because of the truth behind them, the untold stories and unseen struggles they darken with their shadows. Is it not true? One of the scariest things in life is how every person has the right to change, in whatever way they were to do so, at any time; without a warning, without so much as a thought.

The point of the argument often isn't the two people holding either ends of the accusation, it's how both of them had arrived at this point. It could well be that the accused had changed, but it could also mean that the one accusing was actually the one who is no longer the same. And while we're at it, it's not too far of a stretch in the logical plane that it is highly possible that both had changed too, albeit to different extents. And is that so wrong? Is it a crime to change? To no longer fully hold onto who you once were? To avert a gaze, entertain an ambition, reshuffle priorities? Who were we once, and who have we become?

No, change isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is more than desirable in some cases, but more often then not, the core issue arising is that people are simply afraid. Our weaknesses and fears and insecurities prey on us. We change because we fear something: fear loss, fear failure, fear judgment, fear of not being true to ourselves and our deepest desires that we may or may not have kept hidden, tucked hastily in a shadowed corner of out hearts.

Fear, for better or for worse, changes everything.

But we have to also realise that at the end of the day, fear is still just a feeling. Fear is a choice. We make that choice for ourselves, and only ourselves. We could use it to harden our hearts, or we could use it to lift our souls.

Remember: Everyone changes. The real question is, how?

Best wishes,

A girl who wonders about the things people fear to speak of, 

and desires to bring courage, 

to herself, 

and to others.