I HAVE CHANGED!!

Have you ever met someone you knew - let's say from high school - and you hardly recognized them?  Perhaps you saw a co-worker from an old job and you see them at WalMart and strike up a conversation.  Maybe you moved to a different state and go back to visit family and run into someone from the old neighborhood.  The conversation is so different NOW than it was then, isn't it.

Time, life, situations, circumstances, life choices and experiences will "change  you".  Certainly once you accept God into your life - the entire focus is completely different.  The narrative from which we view life and the things around us takes on a different meaning.  Things you used to do - you just don't do no more!  Places you used to go - you just don't go no more.  The narrative from which you exist is completely different. 

Over time, our "tastes" change!

It is not uncommon for the people from your past to relate to you from the mirror of who you "used to be".  Some still sit on the same "steps" they used to - still playing dice or SPADE - (just like you "used"to)... seemingly STUCK in time.  Likewise, some of these people (and thee is NOTHING wrong with them).... have chosen to NOT have ambition and yet be angry with YOU for taking steps forward with your life.  It is said too often "you have forgotten where you came from".  Nah, I have not forgotten - I just made a choice not to STAY where I WAS. 

Life is all about choice - so choose well.

Maybe it is an "EX" from your days of being a pole dancer :-)  The idea of seeing you dressed in a business suit and being your own CEO has got to make "them" gasp.  Your entire persona is different.  Your aura got their attention even before they recognized it was YOU!  Change is evident in every area of your new found self and you are not being arrogant and certainly not an issue of conceit but you are just not THAT person any longer.  BRAVO! 

Everyone has a past.  Like it or not we all have history.  We can wallow in it and blame the government, blame society, blame racial unrest or blame OURSELVES for not embracing forward movement.  Thing is - one day you have to look in the mirror and not wanna be "JUNE BUG" anymore.  One day it just "hits you" that you are not gonna look like, act like, hang around with your past.  Your history is part of your life journey and without it - YOU would not be the great person that you are today.  There are people that you know that have blown their brains out from issues that you had to walk through.  I have personally stood in front of the open casket of people I knew - the first glance is of total disbelief of the loss - then the flood of memories of who they "used to be" to me.  Memories.... OUCH!!  When I see horrible stories of movie stars and people of monetary means who commit suicide - it begs to ask - does money "cure" everything?  Emphatically and painfully, the answer is "NO".  How many times do you wanna reach inside the "Breaking News" and WISH - oh how I WISH "I" could have said something - anything to quiet the noise in their head that said "suicide is painless".  (.....conversation for another time). 

Celebrate the "NEW YOU"!!  With all of the things that were seeking to see you fail - including a few friends - God saw that "something" in you - and CHOSE you.  It is but by the grace of God that YOU were not victim of your own past.  Yeah, the "almost" HIV victim, yes, you - the "almost" drug addict.  Ummmm, yes, you the one voted "Least Likely to Succeed". 

The "OLD YOU" is still inside you.  I'd say to people, "IT IS ME - BUT IT IS *NOT* ME" ... I am not suffering from Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar or any other mind altering mental deficiency (although I pray for and support those that are....).  The polarization of my distance from who I was to who I am is a "WIDE GAP".  The experience I have gained in my "WILDERNESS" experience was valuable.  Do I wanna go "back" - Heck, NO.  Let be the first to tell you, without the past - I would not be the grounded person I am today. 

 Yeah, I may have done what I did - but it is NOT who I AM!!

So to the people that KNEW me - it is true that you know my name - but you don't know ME anymore.  Ask someone who has battle scars from life.  They have changed too. 

You can touch me - but I don't even feel the same.  If you have ever felt numb from a series of challenges or circumstance you can attest to the fact that your very sense of "TOUCH" has been altered.  Sounds crazy, huh?  It is unequivocally true, though. 

It is okay to talk about the OLD ME.

I just don't "LIVE" there anymore!