A reflection on how our voices travel with us.

How I Got Here:

Lately, I’ve been wandering through a hidden grove—one I planted years ago. Somewhere between high school notebooks and grown up journals, between drafts and blog posts, there’s been a quiet voice humming this whole time—mine—and I’m starting to recognize what my voice has sounded like all along.

Recently, I revisited an old, hidden blog from my younger years (yes, yes, I used Tumblr). A digital time capsule, filled with the restless observations of a version of me who lived in the liminal space between childhood and adulthood. I found a version of myself quietly observing the world, pressing words into the soft soil of our adolescence. 

Reading those old posts felt like standing before a window fogged by memory. Behind it? A version of me earnestly searching for belonging, sketching bittersweet beauty with trembling but intentional hands.  

And what I found is this: My voice has been wandering the same grove all along.

It’s changed now—but not as much as I expected.

Back then, I wrote like someone watching the world through a window—feeling the rain, aching for connection, sitting in awe and ruminating in small moments. There was a tender vulnerability to my younger voice, one that leaned into bittersweet beauty and the tension of wanting more—all while trying to figure out how to savor the now (we didn’t do so well back then…and to be honest, it’s still a conscious effort).

In revisiting my younger self’s words, I realized:

The me who stood in that liminal space—the aching, the wonder, the hunger to capture fleeting moments—we’re still here.
The cadence of my voice, the longing to gather meaning from the mundane, the sacred ache I sometimes carry? They have always been woven into my being.
The melancholy-tinged beauty, the deep reflection, and the hunger for belonging—they were never passing phases. They were—and still are—my native language. 

And boy, am I fluent in it.

What’s shifted is how I dialogue now. 

Looking at me now, that voice has stretched and rooted deeper. It still wanders the same woods, but it knows how to stay grounded when things get heavy or uncertain.

Now, I write with (slightly more) softened shoulders, with more patience, more grace, and with more faith cradled in my palms.

And maybe that’s the gift of time:
To realize the seed has always been the same, it’s just bloomed into something fuller and more recognizable and appreciated for its depth and breadth, the visible and invisible–the tangible and the abstract.

These days, I’ve learned how to leave the window view and walk barefoot outside—knowing that the melancholy and the awe can coexist in the same breath—ready to gather what God planted in both the world around us and within us.

So here I am, still foraging in faith for beauty in my work and how I show up for others, still feeling everything (a lot of everything) all at once, still journaling to create clarity (and sanity)—just as younger me did. And in the quiet moments where it’s just me, God, and the soft rustling of who I’ve always been, I feel present with all the versions of me in a way that seems to transcend time.