I am in the process of reviewing drafts that I have saved over the last few years. I saved the following draft on July 11, 2010. Now, a year later, I think it's about time to finish her up…but you'll notice that the beginning bits are a bit outdated now.

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(Written 7.11.10)

Forgive me for being a little wistful over the next few months. 2010 is shaping up to be a year where a lot of time and hard work is paying off, and I wouldn't really be me if I didn't give credence to the past while celebrating the present. On the way to work the other day, the DJs were discussing the had-I-known-then-what-I-know-now conundrum, and I haven't been able to get the topic off my mind.

In less than six months, I will marry Nick. I think back to myself seven years ago when I tried this the first time. There are a lot of things I liked about that Laura, mainly the innocence. She thought that she could have anything she wanted if she just wanted it badly enough. She had her whole life ahead of her, which translated roughly to an idea bordering on immortality.

She had never truly experienced death, save for elderly relatives who passed in her early youth and whom she never really knew to begin with. The idea that someone close to her could leave was so foreign that it hinged on ludicrous. She also believed that promises are always upheld, regardless of the source. I truly was a little Pollyanna, and nothing could ever go wrong if I just kept my spirits up and hoped for the very best.



That girl also had zero ability to cope with hardship, and lacked faith in her own strength. As has been documented throughout the archives of this blog, her world as she knew it did eventually crash. It was sudden and the wake was devastating. Like Pollyanna being told that she may never walk again, for the first time I couldn't find anything to be happy about. I too needed the love and support of the people in my life to climb my way back out.

Yes, I miss her innocence, but mostly I am sad that she had to find out the hard way that there isn't always an obvious silver lining, that you have to go looking for the good. I do not miss her fear that if everything wasn't always "just so" that something catastrophic would happen or that everyone would judge her incompetent at life. It's the coming of age that I suppose we all go through.

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(Written 7.10.11)

I became too wistful to publish this last year. My memory is fairly good, but I have a tendency to romanticize the past. When an alternate reality hued with rosier shades presents itself, melancholy is a foregone conclusion. 2010 did end up to be a year where a lot of my goals were realized…but at the time this was written, I was beat.

I have never known exhaustion so complete as I had during my last few months of school. A perfectionist in almost everything, I refused to accept anything other than an A. Those last few really difficult classes came with professors who were extremely stingy with their top marks. I wrote my heart out. I researched until my brain felt ready to burst. I raked my papers over coals in effort to see them through the eyes of an unsympathetic audience. I scribbled all over them with a red pen, rewrote awkward passages, and gave it everything I had.

Then it was over, and I graduated with top honors.

See, the innocent Laura of yore didn't have it in her to make the sacrifices it took to finish her degree. She did not value herself—neither her development nor her sense of accomplishment—enough to realize that finishing her degree was something she had to do because it was important to her. It really wasn't about anybody else…that's something I didn't understand before.

Reminiscing the past is fine as long as you don't let it pull you in. I would have to sacrifice a lot to return to a different time. The tradeoff would never be worthwhile, not with any terms. I regret that I am entering the next decade more jaded than I entered the last, but that's life. Innocence is a gift, and it's special because it's not meant to last forever.

I still see the glass as half-full even though I know that it could very easily go the other way. I am still a Pollyanna, even though it irritates the pessimists. (Hi, Brenda! Hi, Michelle! Hi, Nick!) I am proud of this. Today, my optimism is the result of a choice. Yesterday, my optimism existed because I couldn't fathom anything going wrong.

Making the choice gives me more strength than an assumption never could. I still like thinking about what if…what if I knew then what I know now? Quite frankly, I would not have been able to handle it. Knowing more is the reward of time, and I'll accept my prize gratefully.