There's a girl I see every day.

I know every detail about every version of herself she has ever been.

Some days I am excited knowing I will see her,

but some days I hide and pray I won't catch a glimpse.

She's different now than the version I first knew.

The girl she used to be was one I could never love.

She was loud and bossy and never had the right thing to say.

Then she evolved into a person I could mostly endure being around.

She gained a sense of humor that I understood and gained her laughs from the people around her. She started to develop a twinkle in her eye that only I could see.

She was always chasing someone though. A boyfriend who saw her as an option, a best friend who only came around when she needed someone but was never around when she herself was needed. My heart broke for her every time a person who was supposed to care about her would leave her in the dust for greener pastures.

As she grew and evolved, she outgrew those around her. Everyone except for me that is.

And then one day I watched her make a silent and irrevocable decision: to live a life where she was okay to be on her own. She'd go to lunch alone, she'd hike the mountains she'd always admired by herself, and she learned to love her own company. I would catch glimpses of her from shop windows as she'd pass and I could hardly recognize her.

The sparkle that I once saw only in her eye started to become her whole aura.

That sparkle isn't as bright every day but it's brighter than it ever was before.

She is so different than the girl I once knew who I couldn't stand.

So as I sit down at my vanity with a guttural sigh and start my day, I don't flinch or look away from the girl I see looking back at me who loves my company just as much as I now love her's.