As funny as it sounds, I made it — here I am, I’m still standing. It might seem a little bit cheesy, but I am proud of myself simply due to the fact that I am still standing here pursuing my goals.

As a 20-year-old, I thought life during this stage was supposed to be just peachy, as some like to put it. I thought that my biggest problems in life would be where I can find the cheapest groceries and maintaining my grades.

Growing up my life has been filled with things that I never quite knew how to handle. At the age of 12, I was rather quickly forced to grow up and take on a role that many 12-year-olds weren’t meant to handle. It was from then on that my life was thrown into a whirlwind.

At the age of 15, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, something that no one can ever be equipped for. At the age of 18, I was violated, and my innocence was taken from me as I was assaulted. Finally, at the age of 19, my life spiraled out of control as I discovered a new sense of grief and within that grief, a part of me was lost along with it.

With my life highlighted with a darkness, I often lost hope, I found myself going to various lengths to achieve the happiness that I felt I needed, all of which were unhealthy. These lengths only caused me to grow farther away from that goal of being happy.

With the dawn of a new year, I finally found myself coming to multiple realizations, all of which helped me to obtain my goal of being happy.

At 20 years old, I am lucky enough that I can stand here and tell you that I am happy, I made it, and I am, as a matter of fact, still standing. My life compared to an average 20-year-old’s life is very different. I have been through more than an average 20-year-old would have ever even imagined.

I don’t want to paint my life out to be a terrible picture, I simply want to show that despite the odds, I never let tragedy define me, I simply allowed it to shape me. I am thankful each and every day for the life I have been given.

I have not only been given my life, I have been given the people who make each and every day of my life worth it. They were there during each and every single of those times that I felt as if I couldn’t go on, that I wasn’t meant to make it. Without these people, I most definitely would have never been able to be standing where I am standing.

I have lived a lot within my short 20 years and I still have a lot of life left to live. My story is not over yet, I mean, after all, I’m just getting started