Looking back at the past eight and a half months, I’ve had a lot thrown at me and I’ve dealt with a lot. 2016 has thrown many challenges at me which has caused me to learn many lessons, a lot of which I learned the hard way. If I am being completely honest, at this moment it feels as if this year sucked, but this is only because of how hard the lessons I needed to (yes, needed to) learn were.

I kicked off this year pretty shitty. Three days into the new year I lost my grandfather very unexpectedly. This made me question so much of what I believed in. When life gets hard and things happen that we don’t understand, we question our faith. That’s what I did. I lost my faith for a while. I didn’t understand how in less than six months, I could lose two people so close to me. It didn’t make sense. These were also my first encounters with family death, it was all a sad learning experience for me but I came out stronger not just emotionally, but spiritually as well.

Another lesson I learned was that I needed to see that I was worth more than I gave myself credit for. I dated a guy for a year and the breakup sucked, then for an entire year post-breakup we were talking and I thought that we were exclusive but apparently he felt that he could tell me he wanted me back and still talk to all these other girls. Finally, I woke up one day and realized he wasn’t worth it: the stress, the anxiety, the tears, none of it. I realized that I needed to put myself first and be happy. So I went to his apartment, left the keys on the table, and cut him out of my life (which clearly didn’t affect him because three days later he had a new girlfriend). But from that experience, I realized that I am worth something, and I am not who I dated, I am not what some guy tells me I am; I am me, and I have worth (and guys are stupid sometimes).

This brings me to my next life lesson of 2016: heartbreak. It had to happen eventually, right? Yes, we broke up in 2015 right before I graduated, but after a week of ignoring each other, we went right back to each other, so it was like there was never a real “breakup.” I was emotionally abused by this guy which made it much harder to handle but when I finally cut the ties, I felt great. I was sad that the memories were over, but that’s why they’re called memories. I didn’t truly feel the heartbreak until I found out he had a new girlfriend, who he told me was “just a friend” and he’d “never date her” when we were “exclusive.” I came to realize that heartbreak isn’t so much what I felt, but rather, heartbreak is the mix of emotions you feel at the end of a relationship. I felt lied to and hurt, this caused me to think, “what else has he lied about to me?” and “how long were they talking for?” and I really just overanalyzed something that I just needed to accept. But I got over him, and I moved on from it all, which is eventually the lesson I had to learn. So maybe it wasn’t so much learning what heartbreak was, but rather how to move on from it; a key lesson I learned.

Another lesson I came to learn this year was the value of friendship. I have this tendency to forgive people who don’t deserve it and let them walk all over me and use me and tell me that is “friendship”; it’s not. Friendship is being there when someone needs you. Friendship is helping out with no complaints. Friendship is, like any relationship in life, a 50/50 partnership. If I buy you food all the time and drive you everywhere and give you a few dollars here and there, I at least expect that from you once or twice, or a thank you. I expect you to be there for me when I need a friend, and I expect you to listen, not just disregard what I say and make your life seem worse so I feel “better.” That isn’t friendship. Unfortunately, I had a lot of “friends” like that (like four or five). So one day, I cut them all off, started spending more time with my real friends, and I couldn’t feel better than I do now knowing the people I surround myself with would do anything for me and I’d do the same for them.

Finally, I learned that guys come and go, but I am stuck with myself forever. I don’t always need a boyfriend. I have to find myself before I can find a boyfriend and I’m working towards that every day. Do I have days where I feel lonely as hell? Sure. Do I have days where I just want a guy to hold me and make me feel loved? Of course. But how can I expect a guy to love me when I don’t love myself. I need to love myself and be self-sufficient (aka live life without a guy). Like I said, I am working towards that, and I’m almost there. But at the end of the day, for now, I’m left with myself, so I need to love myself.

So looking back on it, yeah, this year sucked, but it was also a good year in hindsight because I learned so much about myself and how to deal with certain situations. The lessons I learned in 2016 are lessons that I would have learned eventually in my life, so I guess it’s good to get them out of the way now. I still have a few months of 2016 left and I’m starting my sophomore year of college in less than two weeks. This gives me the chance to escape my small town so I can let the lessons I learned really sink in, and I can learn new ones along the way.

Here’s to learning more life lessons, becoming a better version of myself, and moving forward.