Everyone can probably pinpoint the exact moment they realized they were no longer unbreakable; no longer protected from anything that came their way. For me, it was my accident. When I was 17 I was in a car accident that flipped my life upside down. Before that day I honestly believed I could do anything and that nothing could stop me. I was this force of nature that was going 100 miles per hour and then, all of a sudden, I got knocked down on my butt. I was stuck at this standstill. As the world continued around me, I was moving through mud, trying to figure out how to be me again.

How was I supposed to come back from something so devastating to my own personal self? How does a 17 year old girl get back up from being the fun, smart, quick as a whip girl with the AP and Honors classes on her schedule, the millions of extracurriculars demanding her time, with friends and family asking, "Are you okay?" as a constant reminder of what she was trying to overcome? She doesn't. You don't go back to who you are once you are broken. You heal over time and get stronger. You move forward, face towards the sun

From then on, my view on life changed. I was harder and more weary of what went on around me - and it showed. I thought if i could control every little thing I would be okay and never be as scared or vulnerable as I was that day again. But of course I was wrong. Bad things just kept coming and coming no matter what I did to try and stop it. But that's the thing, bad things were always there, an arms length away, but it just hadn't directly affected me until my accident.

Just when I thought things were going good, something bad would happen. I was in another accident, my grandfather died, I struggled with bad friendships, and I had to readjust. Then I hit one of my lowest lows, I had a health scare and ended up in the hospital, a spinal tap the least of my worries, then I was hit with another chronic disorder.

Through it all, I realized that there's always going to be something no matter what you do. That's just how life is. But just waiting for more bad things to come and bracing for the clean-up is not living. You have to move forward through the storm, through the bad times, to get to the sunshine. One day might be truly awful, one of those days when everything seems to be going wrong, but you know no matter what, that day is going to have to come to an end. You'll close your eyes and the hours will tick forward and you know when you open your eyes again, a new day has reset itself.

The sun is going to set and rise again.

p.s. click the link for a schedule of the sunsets in New Jersey for the month of January.