Waves of Time come crashing in...

So lately, I've been looking back a lot on my high school days and reading over conversations that I have had and pictures that were taken. I remember in those days thinking to myself about how much drama and stress there was and about how much i couldn't wait to move on with my life; to move forward. I first of all remember feeling so overloaded with work and thinking it was so hard and now I can truly look back and laugh at how little was actually expected of me. I can look back and see the little 'dramas' that would take place with my friends and I and see that they also haven't disappeared but also have only grown to be more difficult in content and depth. I look back and although I truly have so far to go, I can see so much growth since then. I remember how I used to think and feel about the world and people around me. I was so selfish and righteous and thought that I was about reprimand, but yet I was so naive and so ignorant in reality. I remember all of the 'nevers' that i spoke against myself...saying: 'I will never..this and never..that' and how I looked at certain close friends of mine, whom I thought I had an eye of love towards, with such an eye of judgment and condemnation. I thought I knew what life was about but yet I had truly never lived. what a hypocrite! and yet the people I loved the most were suffering so much and valued so deeply what I said to them and the advice that I gave to them.
I guess these are times that we must go through so that we can look back at them and learn from them and improve ourselves. One piece of insight that I have gained from looking into my 'high school thoughts and years' is the value in believing in people. Truly believing in them and trusting that despite the ways in which they fail and have failed, they will make it through and are capable of living lives of great power and insight.
I can also look back and see many admirable things about myself that used to come so easy for me which now I have to work for and struggle with to continue steadfast in, such as my faith. I used to be 'unmovable' and never swaying in my constant passion and zest...and maybe that was pride just as much as it may have been a blessing but I do miss that determination that I once so energetically had.
Time has such a way of smoothing out the rough edges and curving us into the people we are and will become. As one wave moves in and crashes onto a rocky shore and just as quickly is pulled back out into the sea, we yearn for those waves to return to us and we ache when they leave but with each wave that goes out another one will come crashing back; continuing to smooth and shape us into whom we are meant to be. It's learning to be patient and enduring of these waves and the process of 'give and take' that we need to learn to live with and accept...