First of all, I'm incredibly glad that aprictotpie is still in existence. It is, I believe, the most wonderful website out there. Even though I don't always feel like I have time to keep up with it, I always feel at home coming back. Thanks so much to those who keep it going! 

Now then...

I’ve done a lot of growing up the past year. And very little of it in ways that I expected. If you had asked me a year ago whether I wanted to grow up, I’m sure I would have said yes. I wanted to be more patient, more confident, more understanding. But I feel like most of the ways I’ve grown have been things I never imagined having to deal with at all; and it turns out that sometimes the things I don’t even see as problems are my biggest downfalls. And patience, strength, and empathy are supposed to be subsequent benefits of getting your heart ripped out repeatedly and in different, creative ways. And sometimes it just sucks. Things would be so much easier to get through if they weren’t embedded in your soul somewhere.
Patience isn’t waiting a certain amount of time for something or someone; it’s being willing to wait as long as it takes. And acceptance that you may not even see a change.
Not having trouble dealing with something isn’t strength: strength is getting by even when you’d a thousand times rather give up.
And empathy…usually empathy is connected to seeing patience and strength in others and how crazy difficult the said attributes actually are.
And I’d like to say I’m more prepared now for whatever the future includes.  But honestly, I don’t know. And that has to be okay.

“Be still my soul, thy God doth undertake to guide the future as He has the past." --Katharina von Schlegel