Leaving Room In Your Life for Change

(I'm about to get a little sad, but bare with me, it gets better. Like, a lot better.)

Everything is eternally temporary. Everything on this Earth is going to be gone someday. Everything existing will cease to exist. Everything will not perpetually be the same as it once was.
These are the thoughts any awkward adolescent has a hard time coming to terms with.

In a period of my teenage life, I was going through (what I currently believe to be) the worst couple years of my life. My grades were slipping way below average. My friends had alienated me. My parents were never in the same room without leaving a trail of verbal destruction and pained feelings. My siblings were busy and away with their new lives. One of my best friends had committed suicide. My life was falling apart.

As time passed, nothing seemed to get better. The days seemed darker, the nights felt lonelier, and I was slowly spiraling into a dark abyss of hate, anger, and pain. For a teenage girl, there was no option to vent out your feelings without looking like you just wanted attention or you were being dramatic. After a couple months of solemn loneliness, I turned to some pretty nasty habits. They were (temporary) distractions to stray my mind away from reality, plunging myself into a pitiful and self-deprecating state of mind. I was going down a dangerous road without any U-turns to a place of empathy and addiction.

However, I slowly began to realize that I was treading down the same path that my deceased friend had gone down. If he was watching over me, would he be proud of the person I was becoming? How could I honor his life, by allowing myself to inch closer towards the end of it? I began to reevaluate the special things I had in my life. I noticed the friends that stayed behind and took notice in my change of behavior. I began to start studying earlier and harder for school. My parents started to mend their differences and started seeing eye-to-eye. I tried to reach out to my siblings when I needed advice about something that was wrong. And finally, I started to accept the choice my friend made to leave this Earth and believe he was in a better place.

As I look back towards these awful few years, I understand how much of a blessing the things and people in my life are to me. In that younger teenage mindset, I would've never imagined I would be where I am today.
Life may stray you different from the ideal path you want, but you will always find a new way to get back on it. To be cliche, it does get better. Who's to say tomorrow won't be the best day of your life? With a little tweak in your mindset, you may see everything in a brand new light.

- Em