Happiness is a word I feel I've thrown around too much in the past few years.

Yes, I have things in my life that make me so unbelievably happy that I can hardly contain it; I have late night drives to the Blue Ridge Parkway, I have trips to Waffle House and runs through the rain and the coffee shop down the street that makes the absolute perfect hot chai. I am a breathing, living, existing human being; and for that I am incredibly happy.

But happiness is a word that holds a lot of weight, and looking back on the past few years of my life I'm afraid I've used it trivially. "This makes me so happy!" accompanied by a cheerful giggle and most likely a bit of spastic dancing is an image that I have crafted for myself, created so that people associate me with happiness, with crazy cat prints and bad dance moves and the fact that I am always up for a cuddle puddle. But is it actually real?

Yes, I am a happy person. Matching every outfit with a pair of funky socks, giving people hugs just because, wanting to bring joy to others--these are all building blocks of myself, elements that form the cheerful person I am. I am not fake in the happiness in which I present myself, I am not a fraud in wanting others to have happiness too, however it is not all I am.

I am crafted of good and bad, and although my outwards happiness is what is most often seen, it is not all that exists. There are grey spots of sadness on my soul, growing and developing all the more every time I push them back, every time I smile and laugh with another exclamation of "Of course that's alright!", "I'm perfectly fine!", "This makes me so happy!" I sacrifice myself – I sacrifice my balance and my expression and my sanity– all to retain an image of myself that is only one part of who I am.

The end of my first semester of college is in sight, and with the beginning of a new year with new classes and new beginnings I've created one big resolution for myself: value my own happiness. If I'm having a bad day and need a hug I'll find someone who can give me that support, if I'm having a good day and need some time away from negative influences I'll take that for myself. I am going to work harder from now on to stop living in an online world and start living in a real one, to stop thinking about the future and start thinking about the moment. I know it probably sounds like a lot of talk, but I know I can do it. I don't know why exactly, but from somewhere deep in my heart, I can just feel myself beginning to understand who I am and what I need.

I believe you can do this too, to value your own happiness. Write it somewhere, write it everywhere, repeat it to yourself in the mirror, make a recording of you saying it and set it as your ringtone, anything to remind you that you are important and you don't have to have others tell you for it to be true. Be kind to yourself, love yourself, value yourself--you are worth it.