Reflecting on Life Choices: My Journey to 50

It’s exactly one month until my 50th birthday. That’s a good age.

I know myself – my weaknesses and my strengths – better than ever before. I understand not only who I am now, but also all the choices from my past that have shaped me into the person I am today. I’ve managed to expand my comfort zone enormously, and I’m not afraid to push it even further.

I’m no longer that naïve, gullible people-pleaser whom even those I once considered my best friends would trample over. The 25-year-old me merely watched from the sidelines as whispers began behind my back and events unfolded – events whose meanings only became clear to me much later.

In fact, I still don’t fully understand why things happened the way they did. But that no longer matters.

That thirty-something version of myself consciously set all of that aside when the same people wanted to pick up where we had left off. And so I went along with it, only to finally come to terms with those thoughts recently.

Life goes on. The old band will never return, but the new band is charging ahead at full throttle.

I harbour no bitterness, nor do I blame anyone for anything. My past has made me exactly who I am. No one now tramples over me, and I make sure not to do the same to anyone else.

True strength, after all, does not mean a lack of empathy.