An alphabytes entry.

Growth is really the only thing we have going for us, and it is the growth that happens when you’re not looking that matters the most. It is only by marking the milestones on door frames across the country, by noticing that their pants suddenly seem too short, that children know they are growing; emotional growth happens much the same way. It is only when we stop to really examine ourselves that we see how much we have grown, matured, changed.

Growth happens at night when everything seems to be hibernating. Growth happens when history doesn’t repeat itself.

I would wager to say that even in her 80s, my grandmother is still growing – she has a gay granddaughter, probably something that would never have entered into her imagined visions of the future when she was my age. She appears to be dealing with it just fine.

I am far from the person I want to be. I still have problems that I am working on, faults I am trying to get rid of. But when I look back at myself at 19, it amazes me just how different of a person I am.

And thank god for that. I live in fear of the day I stop growing.