The last two weeks have been a blur. I've gone from turning in assignments and finally beginning to settle into the routine of the new school year, to being told that there might be a hurricane coming to North Carolina, to being told that there is a hurricane coming. I've gone from being settled into packing my bags for an indefinite "vacation," and not knowing what was heading to my home state, or my two favorite places.

Yet, through all that, I had never gone through the process of necessarily being concerned for my safety. I never once fully considered the implications of the storm, never once took a chance to realize just how detrimental something like this could be. I read every single news and weather article about Hurricane Florence leading up to the day we got out of school, but I never thought about it deep enough. I never took it in enough.

I never took it in enough until I came home. I didn't fully understand until the hurricane changed paths until my hometown was hit with rain and wind for days on end. Our town suffered, and those around us suffered more.

I never fully understood Hurricane Florence until I was forced to sit in the living room of my home with my parents, and do nothing but watch the news for days and days on end. I began to understand once I saw the damage this storm was doing to places in my state, flooding towns and cities and streets, taking power, taking homes and taking lives.

That's what got to me. That's what made my heart hurt. The looks of the places on our TV screens. The posts from friends and friends online. The hurt that my best friend going to UNC-Wilmington was feeling about a campus that she didn't know if she would be able to go back to.

Those are the things that made me realize how brutal Mother Nature can be. Those are the things that I know I will never fully understand the pain of, no matter how hard I try. Yet, those are the things that have made me realize how special, and how fragile, life is.

Hurricane Florence has renewed my appreciation of life, and everything it has to offer. This storm has literally hit close to home, and it has made me realize how special life is and how lucky we are to have been handed the cards we've been dealt.

This hurricane has caused so much pain and disaster, so much heartache, and her effects are still ringing out loud and clear throughout the Carolinas, and so I've realized how lucky I am to be alive. I've realized that I had lost that appreciation for life, that I was taking it for granted, and I don't want to do that anymore.

Life is so special, so fragile, and so worth being appreciative and thankful for, and this storm has shown me that.