Before I start this article, this is not a sympathy article, an article to bash anyone that has done me wrong or anything like that. I decided to sit down and write this article to tell the experiences I have had through this summer.

This summer has truly been full of ups and downs. From losing and gaining friendships, losing weight, working, etc. I'm not even going to lie, this summer has been very rocky for me. I spent 5-6 days a week working at my job and was therefore not able to hit the beach as much as I wanted to but I still found ways to get out and have fun. It was work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. Repeat.

I lost a couple of my closest friends this summer due to not seeing eye to eye and it was probably one of the hardest things I could have gone through. The biggest friendship lost was my childhood best friend due to miscommunication. We were working through an argument one day and he just stopped responding to me. I never knew why he decided to up and leave my life, and I have attempted to reach out with no response from his end. While this was hard, I moved on.

On the plus side, I gained what I call my now closest friends. All of us became friends through Odyssey and we pulled in other friends to make one big friend group. While I lost one of my longest friendships, I gained a handful of new friends I attend UConn with. All of them are funny, caring, and people who make efforts to truly be genuine friends. I am happy that I will be going into this school year with close friends that will hopefully help me feel more at home.

This summer, I have worked hard on improving myself and focusing on me. I hit the gym and lost a total of 25 pounds during the duration of this summer. I got up early in the morning, threw on gym clothes, and hit the gym alone. As a bigger person, this was probably one of the hardest things for me to do but I overcame my fears and worked on losing the weight. I was able to move closer to my goal, although I am nowhere close to being where I want to be with my weight and how I feel about myself. But, I'm closer than I have ever been before.

I was faced with a lot of hardships this summer that I was able to overcome as time went on, hardships that are not even worth spending the time sitting down and writing about because they are behind me and out of my life. Going into my sophomore year of college, I have decided to spend my time focusing on improving myself and the relationships in my life that matter rather than dwelling on the negativities that were clearly holding me back. One thing I can take away from this summer is no matter how hard things get, and no matter what life throws at you, never give up because things will always get better.