The last day that I would be truly happy for a while was at the beginning of August. I just celebrated my 18th birthday. Late July I had to deal with helping a close friend through a problem, and by the time it was my birthday, things were starting to go back to normal.The next few days, everything took a complete 180. A huge, traumatic thing happened to me exactly a day later. Three days after that, another huge and heartbreaking thing happened to a friend of mine that deeply saddened me as well.

Things like this don’t happen to people like me, right? I had lived a fairly non-exciting life Next thing I know, I am spending most of my time crying, coping, and wanting everyone in my life to be okay. I didn’t have time to feel bad for myself. I had to be there for the people that I love that were also hurting. Overall, I felt numb. Everything that was happening was too overwhelming for me to utter a reaction. It wouldn’t be until weeks after the chain of events that I would come crumbling down.The biggest thing that I have learned is that we are tougher than we think we are. My friend has shown more strength and composure throughout their experience more than I could ever imagine. We are moving on with life. Of course, we are still sad and will have sadder days than others. But that doesn’t mean we stop doing life. We are going to school. We are going to activities. We are being happy.

There will be times where you or somebody that you love is at rock bottom, and that is apart of life. It’s all about how you react to the negative situations that determines how you will recover from them. Sometimes, a smile or a hug helps somebody more than you could ever imagine.