Somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I didn't know where to go, or who to turn to. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't sad. I just wasn't actually there. I was lost in my head, lost in my thoughts, lost and forgotten. You never really think about someone being so sad that they can't get out of bed until you are that person. You never think that someone can be sad enough to harm themselves, until it's you hurting yourself. You never think that depression is real until you are the one that is suffering from it. Trying to cope with the sadness you feel isn't something that comes easy. A lot of times when people ask you to tell them what's going on in your mind, you can't. You can't explain something that you don't even understand yourself. 

I learned that there is nothing worse in life than losing the person that you admire and look up to. Losing my grandfather at 10 years old was something that I never imagined I would go through then. Looking back now, I think that was the root of my sadness. I looked at that situation and thought that nothing would ever be okay again. And in some ways, that's true. My family changed, my aspirations changed, the way I viewed life changed. I didn't know who I would be without him leading me. Today I completed one of the biggest senior projects that's ever been done, in memory of him.

When I got into 8th grade I thought that I found the boy that would love me for the rest of my life. I thought that I would be with him until I died. The thing is though, as time went on I realized that this boy only wanted something he could have control over. He wanted someone that would do what he said when he said it. I began to hate myself. I began to wonder why I wasn't good enough to keep his attention. The sad part is, I was only in 9th grade by this time. It's funny looking back now how miserable I allowed myself to be for a boy. He was one of the reasons I was lost, but he is also the reason I learned to find myself. 

Now I'm a senior in high school, and the things that once would have torn me to shreds, don't even make the slightest impact on my emotional state. I still find myself lost at times, never knowing whether I'm doing the right thing or if I'm doing something that will eventually hurt me. I get lost trying to figure out what I want to spend the rest of my life doing, or where I want to spend the next four years of my life. But that is one of the joys of life; being lost and finding yourself along the way. Just because you're lost right now doesn't mean you won't find the path tomorrow. So keep going. 

What I'm really trying to say is, things can be bad. Things can feel like no matter what you do you aren't enough. The thing about that is though, happiness is a choice. Making it through the hardships is a choice. Becoming a human after war is a choice. If you continue to push through and make something out of the bad times, or if you learn a lesson out of the things that made you hurt, you'll make it out alive. So just keep going, just keep pushing to be okay. One day, you'll make it, and when you look back you'll see that everything was worth it, because here you are. 

No matter what, just keep going.