Twenty years ago... where does time go?

As I was wandering around the internet, I saw an ad saying: How have you changed in 20 years?

I thought, well that's easy! I've grown up!  I was only a little girl 20 years ago.

No... wait.  I was 15.

I wasn't a little girl, but I have grown up.  At 15 years old, I was insecure and out of place.  My body felt foreign -- it was too big, too awkward, too different from everyone else.  My mind was spinning -- too much to absorb, too many people telling me what to think, too many outside pressures, too little actual knowledge.

At 15, I was angry and insecure and frustrated and alone as only a child in a loving home with friends and family can be.  Alone by choice because the alternate was too hard.  I was trying to find my place in the world and I could not do that with everyone else's ideas in my way.

I covered my walls in odd pictures -- not of the latest teen crush -- but of slugs and animals and weird things.  I read book after book about other teens in angst.

I was so irritating.

So now, twenty years later, I am grown.  I have accepted my body -- as big as it is, as awkward as it remains, as different as I like it to be.  My mid still spins with too much to absorb, to many people telling me what to think, too  many outside pressures and too little knowledge, but it is different now.  My mind also spins with my own thoughts and the knowledge I have attained.

I'm in a place that I like -- I'm a wife, a career woman, a dog owner, a friend.  I am not alone unless I choose to be.  I have found my place in this world and I'm content with that.

It's true: twenty years ago, I was a little girl.  And now I've grown up.