The Importance of New

The Importance of New 

Illustration and Writing By Cale’ Ferro 

Hello readers, thinkers, and great minds alike. Today I want to share a little about the blessing of a new beginning. In this world, we are forced to change in order to grow and evolve. That’s just how life works….nothing stays the same forever, no matter how much we might want it to. And in some cases, change can be hard. It's really hard. As a teenage girl, I know the world can feel too crazy to even understand what’s happening in our own lives. One day everything makes sense, and the next day you're on a whole other planet.

Something I keep coming back to is that what is within you exists outside of you. Meaning, things you love, the things you hope for, the person you actually are, they don’t stay locked inside of you. They show up in how you talk to people, how you dress, what you create, who you choose to be around. When everything outside feels loud and chaotic and messy, that inner self is still there, and it’s stronger than whatever storm is happening around it.

Now I won’t pretend change is always easy to welcome. New beginnings have a weird double feeling to them. They’re exciting and uncomfortable at the same time but that's what makes them so special. Think about the moments we all know too well. Starting a new friendship, and wondering if they actually like you or if you’re being annoying. Opening a homework assignment you don’t understand yet, and feeling like it's a completely different language you don’t speak. Standing in front of your closet the night before the first day of school, trying to figure out what outfit is just enough but not too much. Those moments are terrifying in a small yet big way.

But those are also the moments where life peeks through the curtains. Here's the truth: nothing changes if nothing changes. If you stay exactly where you are, doing exactly what you’ve always done, then tomorrow is just another version of today. One thing I want to hold onto is that joy has a habit of returning. Not repeating, but returning. The good things in our lives aren’t gone forever just because things changed. When they come back they might look different than they did before but they do come back. The way you laugh with a new friend might be different from how you laughed with an old one. A good day this year might not feel like the good days last year. That is not a loss! That’s proof that life keeps making new versions of happiness for you, ones you haven’t even met yet! 

So if you’re standing at the edge of something new right now take the step. It doesn’t have to be a big one. Trying something small still counts as trying. You don’t need to have every answer figured out, and you’re not supposed to. Nobody has it all mapped out, no matter how put-together they look. Life is meant to change and to grow and so are you.  To quote the great Mary Oliver :

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

(Excerpt from "Wild Geese" By Mary Oliver)

Lots of Love 

-Cale’