Friday Reflections: The Space Between Who I Was and Who I'm Becoming

It's Friday morning in LA, just past 9 AM, and I'm curled up in my favorite coffee shop window seat, watching the city wake up. There's something about Fridays that always feels like an exhale – this beautiful pause between what was and what will be.

Yesterday's realization about authenticity has been sitting with me. I keep thinking about that unfiltered camera roll and how different the real me is from the carefully constructed version I thought I needed to be. It's like I've been carrying around two versions of myself – the Instagram-worthy Mandy and the messy, creative, sometimes-disaster Mandy – and I'm finally realizing which one actually has something to say.

This morning, I ran into Jen at the campus coffee cart, and she mentioned how different I seem lately. Not in that generic "you look good" way, but specifically how I talk about my work. Apparently, I used to sound like I was reciting from a textbook, all technical terms and designer name-drops. Now I just sound... like me. Passionate, sometimes rambling, but real.

It's weird how you can be evolving without even noticing it until someone reflects it back to you.

After the intensity of this week's project, I decided to do something just for me today. I took my sketchbook to this little courtyard garden I discovered behind the Art History building – this hidden pocket of calm that somehow exists in the middle of campus chaos. Instead of planning next week's assignment, I just drew whatever felt natural. No judgment, no grade, no purpose beyond the joy of creating.

What emerged wasn't perfect or particularly innovative, but it was authentically mine in a way my "impressive" work rarely is.

Maybe that's the space I'm growing into – this gap between the polished perfection I used to chase and the messy authenticity I'm learning to embrace. Not abandoning technique, but infusing it with something that's unmistakably my own voice.

So here's to Friday reflections and finding yourself in unexpected places – like camera rolls and hidden gardens and the space between who you were and who you're becoming.