The Before & After of Everything
Sometimes my life just feels like one big series of before & afters.
Growing up, we learned about Before Christ (BC) and After Christ (AD). In Catholic school, I was presented a concept of a clear divide that always stuck with me, but didn’t really hit home in my own life, until I got much older.
Eventually I started to realize…
There was definitely a “before” my mom died, and an “after.” Or a “before” Accutane and an “after” (if you know, you know!) And most certainly, a huge “before” coming out and a liberating and refreshing “after.”
As time goes on, we collect so many of these monumental moment. Those times where you can practically see, taste, and feel the shift within you, whether it happens in an instant or you realize it in retrospect. It’s this remarkable way to look at the timeline of your life, almost like a roadmap of memories and experiences.
These aren’t just random events; they are signals. Signals of when you really leveled up or learned something profound. They can be a testament to your survival after a really dark period, or a symbol of the incredible tenacity of the human spirit. Sometimes, it’s an accomplishment that meant so much it literally changed your entire life trajectory as a result.
All these “before & afters” are what truly make us who we are right now, in this present moment. They might have left us with battle scars, sure, but they also could have brought us the loves of our lives, or the children we always dreamed of having.
They instill in us the patience to keep trekking through this wonderfully mysterious life, and the passion to keep moving forward.
At any given time, we might be struggling, or know someone who is. Maybe it was a friend or a partner who changed our life (for the better or worse). Or perhaps a vacation that inspired you to move abroad or continue traveling the world.
Life isn’t without its challenges, that’s for sure. I know we can all attest to that!
But sprinkled throughout are these incredible moments where we learn from our mistakes, overcome hardships, and forge a path forward. It’s genuinely astounding how we as humans, are so resilient.
We stumble, we fall...and yet—we get back up again!!
We soar, we fly…and we reach new heights!!
It’s incredible.
The sheer perseverance and will of our collective power as humans is something to behold.
We are in trying times. No one can escape the harsh realities that life presents to us on the daily: injustice, cruelty, persecution, judgement, criticism, and lack of kindness…
But in true hopeless optimistic fashion, I yearn for these trying times to be a before, and the after…oooh baby, that after will be much more earnest and delightful.
So, I’m curious, what “before & afters” have impacted you the most? What was that pivotal moment that truly changed your life, or several moments, whether you knew it in that moment or not?
I feel like there’s a clear “before” and “after” in how I’ve recently begun identifying as a writer. Although I’m still relatively new to writing, I already notice myself seeing the world differently than I did before. I'm curious and excited to see how my "paradigms" continue to evolve as I deepen both my writing skills and my identity as a writer.
This is beautiful. I definitely have the before and after coming out although it was a very long process. It's crazy how different I feel as a person.
The second one is probably my before and after I got a job at Google. It's just a job but it made so many things possible for me like moving to Amsterdam, go on trips all around the world, working with all sorts of huge companies, just in general creating this sense of life stability that I have a strong CV and a good financial situation thanks to it.