I am writing this at 1 a.m. after I have had quite a few drinks and am more reflective on life than I have been in a while.

Thank you 2017 for teaching me so many life lessons through some of the hardest experiences of my life. You have shown me who my real friends are and who and what I should focus my energy on. I spent almost all of 2017 with my life basically revolving around a guy that I am so in love with and that honestly I should have dropped a long time before I did. Sometimes, your heart needs time to accept what your brain already knows. I was looking at it for what it used to be or sometimes is, and not how it is now. Sure, when I’m drunk, sometimes it takes all I have to not call him and hear his voice and see how he's doing.

But, when I’m sober, I realize that I spent a year of my life on someone who didn't care about me near as much as I did about him. I do not regret this in the slightest – I experienced some of the best and worst moments with him and learned so, so much through the whole experience. He was in my life for over a year and he made me a better person without a doubt. But, the issue is that I became a better person because I wanted him to want me, not because I wanted to be a better person for myself. I would bet that a lot of girls can relate to this. Do I regret this or resent him in the slightest? Hell no. At the end of the day, I am a much better person regardless of my intentions in becoming one. He showed me how incredible a guy can make me feel and how strong of a connection I can have with someone, so he really upped my standards in future relationships.

In 2017, I also realized what true friendships are. I realized this through both a horrible friendship and the best friendship I could ever ask for. I say horrible friendship with caution – we were great friends for the longest time. But, come freshman year of college, we became not so good friends. I’m not sure if my eyes were just finally opened to it or what, but we both were living so much for ourselves and not as if we were friends with each other. I can’t blame her completely, I was definitely partly to blame looking back on it.

Regardless, it was a horrible few months. Honestly, I still really miss her sometimes. We had some really great moments together through the five years we were friends and I felt so lucky to be friends with her. I just have to remind myself that the end of our friendship was not like that and she is not the same person today. That incredible friendship lovingly listened to me cry and rant so much over the course of the end of that horrible friendship and I can never thank her enough. She taught me that friendship is all about being there for the other person and being selfless. She will be a forever friend.

Throughout 2017, I held three different jobs. I was fired in May, again in July, and am currently at my third job. I don’t blame the first job for firing me – I had worked there for ten months and ultimately became too comfortable there where I didn’t hesitate to call in. They also had to work around my new jobs schedule since I started balancing two jobs in the summer. I was offended that it was through email, but it was ultimately a blessing in disguise. In the summer, I started working at a different retail place and hated it. When I got fired from there, I was so mad even though I hated working there. The management there was honestly awful and I left an awful review online – as did many other past employees – since I definitely did not deserve to be fired from there.

Two or three weeks passed and I honestly got really bored. I wasn’t taking summer classes and you can only hang out with your friends so much. I decided to start working at a barbecue place that my dad’s good friend owned. My past two jobs had been retail, so working food was definitely something new for me but I have come to love it. I really like the vast majority of the people I work with and it is a big team effort. Most of the people I work with are older and it has opened my eyes up to the hardships of life. Several of these people had very ideal lives before they became addicted to alcohol or drugs, or got divorced after a relationship turned abusive. This job has taught me that people are people and we should be very, very hesitant to judge people based on their current job.

In the Fall of 2017, I signed a lease at an apartment near campus. Honestly, I was planning to live at home first semester and then sublease second semester but I found someone trying to sublease that was offering to pay the first three months rent. I felt so lucky to have found this opportunity, until I met the people I would be living with. It is definitely significantly better now than it is when I moved in, but I do wish I had met these girls before moving in. In a way, it is refreshing living with people I am not friends with because when I am at home, I can genuinely relax and not worry about socializing. I have learned through this experience to just be conscious and respectful of the people I am living with. I am significantly better now about not being too loud, doing my dishes as soon as possible, locking the main door, etc. Overall, it has just made me feel really bad about how awful we were to one of my roommates last year if I’m being honest. (sorry girl, truly!!)

2017 has made me so much closer to my parents and siblings because it has taught me the importance of them. I went through the hardest thing of my life during the spring and it was so nice having my family there for me. They were the few people that were going to be in my life no matter what happened. Not living with them has made me significantly closer to them and care much more about their opinions of me. I used to not care if my younger siblings liked me, and now I at least make an effort.

Since middle school (aka the hardest time of my life), I have considered myself atheist. 2017 made me change that to agnostic. I was introduced to a non-denominational church during spring of 2017 and it helped me so much. It was truly like the sermons were looking at my life and speaking based on what it had witnessed. It was incredible. It was the highlight of my week for a while and I still really enjoy going. It definitely helps me more when my life isn’t so good, but I go consistently now and am planning on joining a small group next semester.

I am a completely different person leaving 2017 as I was entering it. I have struggled through countless amounts of stuff this year and came out a much better and more experienced person. While I still struggle with the occasional depression and just really bad days, I am overall happy. I am content with my school, my family, my friends, my clubs, and just life.

I think the biggest lesson I have learned of 2017 is without a doubt, that no one cares at all (like seriously at all) what you do with your life. Be friends with the people who make you the happiest, surround yourself with those who make you your best self, work where you are the most content, join the clubs that you enjoy, text him or hook up with him if you want to, stay in if you want to, and just LIVE FOR YOURSELF. Being a good friend, daughter, employee, sister, etc will make you happy and fulfilled so treat the people in your life with respect and be selfless and trustworthy. You are undoubtedly going to do a countless amount of things that you shouldn’t do, but you are not going to regret a single one of them because you learned something from them and they shaped you into the person you are today and will be tomorrow.

"The thing about life that I've learned is that you're going to get hurt. You're going to have emotional nights and cry yourself to sleep for hours. You're going to suffer some kind of heartbreak, some kind of loss. But you will also have those moments where you heal. Those moments are the best. You feel like you smile for the first time again. You feel like you're alive again. Life just kind of restarts."