Metaphors exist everywhere. They run rampant from our mouths in all directions. I've got a metaphor.

Several days ago, in an attempt to carry a pizza box, a milkshake, my phone, and an uncovered container of tator tots, my fingers slipped, causing my phone and the tator tots to spill across the ground. Ketchup inked the ground like blood.

My roommate laughed. I laughed, trying to cover up my dismay over my newly lost dinner and wasted money. A boy passing by stopped momentarily after witnessing the event to comment, "That's really unfortunate."

I quickly picked up my phone and the remaining tator tots, returning them to the home of their unlidded container.

My roommate walked with me the short distance to our dorm's mailing room to get a package I ordered from Amazon. After grabbing my item and exiting the door to the outside, I said, "I think I still might eat some of these tator tots."

"Yeah, they weren't on the ground for very long," my roommate said. Right after that I dropped them, and my phone, again. I groaned, defeated, and picked them up again. There was no way I'd be eating them at this point.

My roommate pointed to my phone and said, "You cracked your phone screen." She stared at it a little more carefully and began again, "Oh, you just cracked the screen protector."

The screen protector had a series of cracks splintering from a single source at the bottom and running in several directions. An accurate visual representation of how I felt about life for the past several months. My spirit shattered.

Using the cracked screen protector of my phone as a metaphor for my life, I thought, "Okay, girl. You need to get your shit together."

I needed to focus on was myself: my happiness, my mental health, motivation, my hobbies. Soiled tator tots were the least of my problems.