Four months ago, my family lost my grandma. Even though it has been over twelve weeks since she passed, it still shakes me to my core. Dealing with grief is a difficult process although I didn't go through the five stages everyone talks about. It was just hard and for several days, I wallowed in my grief completely debilitated by sadness.
Everyone who knows me how much I appreciate the quote 'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." I learned this from my grandma. She had cut it on her Cricket cutter and put it up on her wall. I remember seeing it posted on her wall back when I was in sixth grade and adopting it as my new mantra. I said it to myself, put it on binders and tried to remind myself to live my life the best I could as much as I could. I tried to stare down the things that scared me. Coming to college for example. One of the things I was most scared to, the fear settled in early, probably my sophomore year of high school. But here I am, in my junior year, fighting my way through the storm.
But despite that one big leap of faith, when I was reflecting on my grandma's life and her impact on mine, I felt that I hadn't done enough dancing in the rain.
I realized sometimes, I spent too much time sitting under the cloud of lightning and letting myself get caught up in my grief, stress, or over analyzing. I wasn't spending enough time looking for the rainbow. (I apologize for the cheesy metaphors.) Upon realizing this, I made the decision to make an active change in how I perceived my life.
I knew my grandma would want me to live a happy life, she would worry that I was struggling so much and not letting myself accept to move forward. So I made it a goal to go out and find happiness, despite the chaos that may be swirling around me.
Every day, I do something that will make me happy, I make the best of any situation and do my best to not back away from a challenge.
Although I haven't completely changed the way I live- I still get discouraged and upset when I get rejected from a job offer or miss out on a great opportunity but I do my best to focus on the positives. And when it rains, I don't mind that much. It's just Grandma reminding me to keep on dancing.
