She sent me this photo and said she is starting to see the beauty in her past.
What she didn’t know was that while we are in different states and living different lives, I’ve also been constantly looking in my rearview mirrors.
So, when my eyes fell on that picture and her words about the past being beautiful, I took a deep breath and realized just how much time I’ve actually spent looking at the past.
I haven’t just taken a few moments to glance back to get perspective, I’ve set my gaze there. I have been so determined that I’m not moving my eyes until something good comes from it.
She’s moving forward.
The girl who sent me that picture and those words. I could feel it when I read the words on my screen.
And I could feel this overwhelming feeling that it’s time for me to look forward.
When you keep looking behind you, you miss everything you’re surrounded by. You waste your present and you ignore the future. You lose so much: you lose your hope, you lose your dreams. You lose your joy and let me tell you, it’s a shame for the world to keep spinning without your laughter.
Eventually you will start to veer and if you don’t turn your eyes forward, you’ll go off the road and things will likely spin out of control.
We can’t keep looking back. That’s not where we are going.
And we can’t keep hoping that something or someone else is going to come along push us forward, move us from this place, redirect our gaze.
We have to choose. We have to decide that we can’t just keep staring back there and wishing that things had gone differently.
And we can’t let other people steer the car for us. We can’t depend on other people’s ideas, advice, or dreams to take us where we’re meant to go. We can’t just blindly follow someone else because we’ve lost vision for ourselves.
We’re going places. We’re still here and breathing. There is more ahead. Though it’s painful to think that you may move so far forward that you will never see a beautiful sunset paint over your past, move forward.
There are still sunrises ahead of us in the mornings to come.
ASHLIN BOYLES 
I think the further we move forward the more vivid the colors on the horizon of our past become. We’re able to fully acknowledge how tragically beautiful the past has been, knowing that if we hadn’t once stood there, we wouldn’t be standing exactly where we are now. Timing is everything, timing is perfect.
A good reminder for me this chilly morning as I sit here on my warm bed contemplating my recent regrets. I am frustrated with myself and confused, but “there are still sunrises ahead of us in the mornings to come”. Thank you for writing this. The timing was indeed perfect.