Beginnings…

The promise of something new, exciting, exhilarating, like you’ve waited for this moment your whole life. It’s a rush of adrenaline; an uncharted territory waiting to be explored. It’s new, risky, uncertain, and yet irresistibly alluring.

It’s a mix of fear and excitement, a game of push and pull. Who wins in the end? Do I fight for this new path, or do I retreat, letting fear dictate my choices? Life is a constant battle between chasing what we desire and running from what scares us, and I wonder—what happens if we choose to flee? Do we end up merely existing instead of truly living?

Maybe it's the promise of spring and the sight of flowers blooming that makes me long for transformation. But sometimes, we fall in love with the idea of change without ever taking the steps to make it happen. And when we let go of that dream, that vision, do we truly lose something that was never ours to begin with?

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The pressure builds—the weight of endless possibilities, the paths left unexplored, the versions of myself I never became. It crushes me in silence, as if waiting for my breaking point. But maybe it isn’t about breaking. Maybe it’s about surrendering—not to defeat, but to the relentless desire to become.

But change doesn’t happen until we truly want it to.

No number of epiphanies will bring transformation if we don’t take action. It’s easy to romanticize new beginnings, to love the idea of change. But when reality sets in—when it gets tough and risky—do we push forward, or do we let fear win?

I want nothing more than to explore every opportunity before me. And if they don’t exist, I’ll create them. I know there are paths I’ll never walk, versions of myself I’ll never meet—but that doesn’t mean I have to live in regret. I refuse to be haunted by whispers of what-ifs, to let faded dreams stare back at me like ghosts of a life unlived. But will I ever forgive myself for not pushing harder?

“How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become? How do we forgive ourselves for all the things we wanted to be but didn’t get to be?”— Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Do you think you can forgive yourself?

I ask myself this daily, in moments of quiet grief for the things that never were. But I don’t want to be stuck in the past—I want to take the wheel. To accelerate, to take detours to places where I once felt alive. And when I need to, I’ll slow down, let the breeze ripple through my clothes, and admire the beauty of uncertainties ahead.

Beginnings are do-overs, clean slates, blank pages waiting to be filled. They are second chances—if we choose to take them. If we push forward, life won’t bury us under the crushing weight of lost possibilities.

Today, I accept the choices that led me here.

Tomorrow, I’ll choose the life I want to live.

And years from now, when I look back at the roads I didn’t take, I won’t mourn them—I’ll love the life I chose instead.

I know I’ll love it…

Even if it’s not the best version, I’ll choose again. Because choices are what make life challenging, exciting, and worth living.