Over the year, I’ve learned that you can’t hold on to all of the innocence you once had. Life has this bittersweet way of changing people. It gets in the way of your plans. It has the ability to derail any and every routine that you hold close for comfort. The curious thing about it is you don’t really know if things will change for the better or for worse… if you yourself will change for the better or for worse. The difference lies in how you handle both the expected and unexpected situations that life brings. You can either let your struggles bring you down and lead you to self-destruction or let them build you up and inspire you to be stronger. Change is constant, and there is nothing anyone can do about that. Things change. People change. It can be exciting. It can be disappointing… but you can hold on to the fact that there is calm in knowing that whatever comes your way, though you may lose your innocence, you gain understanding.