When thinking about the New Year, you often think of new goals for yourself, a fresh start to what life has in store for you. It's 2018! A new year, new me? Yeah, right. With my mind set on goals to get accomplished this semester and hopefully throughout the rest of the year, life happens. Events that you don't have complete control over.

I rang in the New Year with loved ones and for New Year's Day, I pigged out on shrimp with my family. On January 2nd, I woke up having things planned for the day. Then life happened. I ate breakfast and on my way to the kitchen, I tripped over a container full of blankets and stubbed my toe. I keeled over in so much pain. After the pain subsided (minorly subsided, keep in mind), I look down at my mind toe and it's crooked.

My toe is not normally crooked so I knew something was wrong. I iced my toe with no help. I went to the urgent care with a swollen toe. The doctor confirmed what I knew from the minute I saw my toe: it was broken. They gave me a stylish surgical shoe and told me to buddy tape my toe in hopes that it will straighten out when healing.

Now, you may be laughing from reading that last paragraph and that's okay. I have always been clumsy (I get it from my mother). But I am sick and tired of being known as the clumsy girl that always finds the dumb ways of getting hurt. I have stapled my thumb from a stapler, I have broken my wrist by scootering down a hill, and I have almost gotten stitches because I kicked a glass lampshade and cut my toe open. No matter if you think it's dumb or funny, it's just bad luck.

It's not just my clumsiness that gives me the worst luck, it's just how life works for me. I study super hard for a test and end up with a grade that I find less than satisfactory. I work super hard on a project for a job or school just for it to get rejected or torn about so much that makes me feel worse than how I left it. Life has left me feeling that way so much that I just immediately expect the worst thing to come out of anything and when it does come out bad, I'm not surprised. Even when things go well, I don't believe it. My bad luck has gotten the best of me.

Now my 2018 has not gotten off to the best start, but I will not let my bad luck and clumsy self, define my whole year just based off of three days. And who needs luck?! If you work hard and do the best you can, that's all you can do. Take it from someone who constantly gets pushed down by life. I keep getting back up because a friend once told me, "Life pushes you down. Failure is when you choose to stay down". There are people out there that have worse luck than me and they keep going. Just keep getting up. Life will happen, but take it in stride.