Quitting

I realized this morning that my entire life, all 23 years, has been about quitting. I am, of course, the girl who learns through doing. Does it hurt to bang your head into the wall? Well, yes, it hurts him and her, but would it really do the same to me? *Five seconds later*, "indeed!" It does inflict pain. So, then I know. At least down this route I usually have first-hand accounts of circumstances that others bring up as topic fillers or gossip-bits.
Anyways, I wouldn't say that I am a quitter, just that I was seeing the world in that light and have only, just now, realized this. Instead of perceiving the transitions in my life as just that, as moments when change takes place in order to move me up or along even, I saw it as a step-back. I guess I'm thinking of life more as a yin-yang type existence now where the items of the paradox, whatever they may be, co-exist rather than pull in completely opposite directions.
The best example I have is my struggle to find a sustainable life-style here, when the home I've known is there. The schism between the two felt like a huge void that I was running from. In one plane I was the young girl, family-oriented and people-pleasing and confident in that role and in the other I was self-reliant,  education-grounded and free, in more than a few ways. In my mind, these two were black and white and I could not see that gray was an option. Most likely because when I went there I heard all the negatives of here and so I began to believe that my life-style choice had a hierarchy, one that I knew intuitively was "wrong" while the other just wasn't "right."
It took this year, a most unpleasant 10 months to be honest, to give me a new beginning. See, the old me would have said, "Time to start over. I'm done with blah, blah, blah." I'm trying something new now. I am building, rather than casting the entire model aside. In reality, that isn't how life works and, if it is, there are only so many times we can start from the beginning, which are actually ruins before we give up and hopelessness sets in.
The first step in my perspective-changed being is to acknowledge that I like the way my ground floor was built. (I'm speaking/thinking entirely metaphorically here.) Once I was able to admit that or to see that, once again, I started to see that it eliminates fear as to what I'll create next. That first level will always be there, so the more comfortable I am with it, the easier it will be for me to try new things and not worry so much about making the "right" decision or even about having the appropriate response.
One of the struggles I'm having with this new outlook is how to react when certain characteristics I have bring me down every once in awhile or make me feel guilty in a situation that another individual might never think twice about, but I guess I'm still learning.
I still won't regret any of the choices I've made, but I will remember my "growing-pains" and pray to God that I remember the lessons I've learned. The hard way, of course.