"Be the Change You Wish to See in the World" – Ghandi

My story isn’t a good one. It won’t make you feel a rollercoaster of emotions or make me different from any other closet depressed, anxious teenager. But it’s a story that needs to be told. Rule number one of this story; always keep in mind that I have a purpose. Rule number two; for the sake of this story and the ones to follow everyone must assume that everything written here is fiction because for the sake of my moral, some of it is. The parts that are real you wouldn’t believe and the parts that are not real you wouldn’t believe either so it is just safer to take none of it as fact. People can’t open up if they do not feel like they are in a safe environment.

I don’t remember a lot of stories, but I remember this one. I was faced with a choice once. A paralyzingly terrifying situation presented itself to me and I had two choices; take it all in stride and stay positive, or react completely the wrong way and go spiraling into a state of pain and grief that would set me up for hardships for years and years to come. And of course, because the universe is cruel and stories are not told for fun at the age I’ve become, I made the wrong choice. I chose to wear dark colors and hide my face behind my hair only seeing the world through a dark and distant veil. I put myself in a pit and stood in my own way. “Depression” is what the doctors called it. I called it “indifference”. Tearing at a my skin, tearing down my walls, made me rough around the edges, shaky. I started to believe the words they said about me were true. They made a perfectly happy little girl a monster to herself. It’s hard to come back from something like that.

But then, a light. One person, one hopeful experience changed all of that for me. He showed me the light inside myself and suddenly the world didn’t seem quite so dark. The words didn’t matter. What those kids said didn’t matter. The world lit up from the inside out and I took it all in with both eyes now that my hair was out of my face. The veil was lifted ever so slightly, that gave me the footing to find happiness again. I still wrestle with the darkness everyday but I wake up and choose happiness. My moral, in case you didn’t catch it, is that we can chose to let the darkness take over or we can punch the darkness in the face and always be surrounded by the light that is within all of us. We have it in us to make our lives something more than long, and it is our right to use that ability each and everyday to make the world what we want it to be.