Over the summer my confidence and self-worth grew quite a bit until I made my way back to school. I began feeling not good enough and unworthy of the love and friendships I had been aspiring for.

In the month of September, my school had a motivational speaker come and present to other student leaders and me about creating a vision for our future. We had to write down the characteristics of our current reality and then visualize what we wanted to see in the future.

In that present day, I wrote that I had a mostly happy life.

I had a great life despite how I always felt like I deserved more. I always felt like people did not treat me the way I needed to be treated.

As I began thinking about what I wanted to see in my future, I listed in my phone some of the basics. Of course, I want a happy life, a family and a career that makes me feel worthwhile. EVERYONE wants those things.

The speaker then asked us that if we could create any life for ourselves with no limitations then what would it look like? I wrote a lot about growing personally and feeling comfortable in my own skin. I wrote a bit about the job opportunities I aspire to have someday. Then, I got to the relationship portion.

In that current reality, I was hurting.

I wrote, "I want to be with someone who loves me properly. Someone I never have to worry that they love me the way I love them. I want my family to be the focal point of my life and to have very close friends surround me when I begin to create a family of my own. I want friends who will be there for me as much as I am there for them. I want friends who do not drag me down but who lift me back up."

Now, of course, these goals seem plausible but during those times it felt unbelievable. Now that four months have passed I have learned that those sort of relationships, that sort of love, I should not have been searching for. It should have already been there.

See, the motivational speaker did not change my life. To be honest, I did not think about it until months later when I stumbled across the notes section on my phone.

In the year before the speaker showed up, I kept getting into relationships that didn't fulfill me. I kept pursuing friendships that didn't deserve me. Somehow, after the speaker showed up, whether it was consciously or subconsciously I changed.

It is important that when you notice that there is toxicity in your life to remove it. It is important that when you find someone who makes you feel like you found the love you have always envisioned for yourself, you treasure it.

Breakups are a simple part of life — an ending and a beginning. After some disappointing experiences dating was terrifying for me, but then I found myself move on from a casual, fragile relationship into a serious relationship that is not full of stress, insecurities or heartbreak.

Friendships you think last forever, but they don't.

The year has been a struggle. It has not been easy for me on all personal levels.

However, the pain of losing very important people including myself has made the love I feel now all worth it. These friendships and relationships I have now created or built have given me the vision I aspired for, four months ago.

I no longer question if I am worthy. I no longer question if I am ever going to find someone who loves me properly. I no longer question if I am the one who is a bad friend.

I now know this is the year I learned most about love and I never have to question if that exists ever again.