There's this strange, almost tender ache I feel when I remember the person I was a few years ago – the one so desperately trying to outrun her own shadows. It's a curious thing, this gentle pang for the 'past self' – like visiting an old, somewhat haunted house where you once lived. You can see the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams, the faint outlines of where furniture used to sit, and a quiet gratitude settles in that you're no longer scrambling to patch the leaky roof with your bare hands, but instead observing it from a sturdy distance. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of that frantic self, running on pure adrenaline and sheer WILL, and there's a detached wonder at the stamina she had, a sort of grim admiration for the way she just KEPT going even when everything was screaming STOP. It’s a strange thing, to look back at the crucible and see not just the pain, but the forging.