I can't deny that my life has been pretty great. I've found freedom and happiness and love, and I have made a new life for myself that is better than I could have ever imagined. However, as someone who has a history of mental illness, I also can't deny that I have been struggling lately as well. Despite my life being better than I could have imagined, a lot has also been hard lately. I've been called terrible things and have been confronted with my life choices by friends and family who I once thought would always support me. I have had guilt thrown at me, and have been made to feel like my happiness isn't important.

I also have struggled to find my footing back in my college town. Considering how different my life is than it was when I left a couple months ago, it's been confusing and weird being back here. I've struggled to figure out where to work and through that process, I'm pretty much broke. I've been drowning my sorrows in take-out as well, so that isn't helping either. I don't feel at home in my college town anymore, but I also am so close to graduating that I'm trying to put up with it. All of this on top of other complications has caused me to struggle a lot lately, despite honestly being truly happy.

I'm writing this to say that it's ok to struggle. It's ok to be happy but to still cry because you don't know why you're back or why you quit that job or what you're going to do until school starts. It's ok to feel confident and powerful but to also have anxiety about seeing the people you know again. It's ok to feel on top of the world but to also feel like you're being kicked to the bottom daily. It's absolutely ok to struggle because nothing in life is perfect, even when you know your life is the best it's been.

When you make a choice to think for yourself and change your life, complications are going to arise. You're going to face people who are fighting against you. You're going to have a minor identity crisis about your place in your old life. You're going to cry just as much as you're going to smile. This all sounds contradictory, I know, but believe me, all of these feelings are ok. I'm obviously still in the process of all of this, and I don't know what's going to happen, but I have a feeling deep in my heart that it's all going to work out the way it should. Because despite the complications that may arise, when you decide to take control of your life, you're ultimately in charge of making it the way you want it to be.

So it's ok to struggle, because struggling is a sign that you have chosen to make a change, and that change will ultimately set you free.