How to Live

I was talking with my mom last night after a friend told me that she isn't coming back to school after this semester. I was already emotionally and physically exhausted, so being hit with this reality was almost too much to bear. When I was talking to my mom, she was saying how good it is that I am so different. And, I really am. College is not about conformity, but about change. You can either become who you think you should be, numbing yourself to your own voices, shouting that are more than you think...or you can change into yourself. I have changed a lot since high school, appropriately. I am still swimming against the current, and more strongly in many ways. And I'm happy. I'm bubbly, as people call it, and that comes from real joy, as I often have trouble projecting an image of myself that is not true. I wear my emotions and where I'm at in life right on my face, I guess.

But freaking out last night...I realized why I can still be happy, even when I'm being different from the norm. I was raised to love who I am, because who I am is never wrong. I have strong morals, strong beliefs, and what I love is to make others happy. I have the confidence of a heart that is in the right place, so I don't have to question what makes me happy. You could die in a month, and knowing that I might not be staying at BU, and seeing first hand how changeable life is, has prompted me to live my life like I have a brain tumor. Each day is a day I would be proud to call my last. Everything could be lost like the snap of a finger, and not cherishing and LIVING each day is spitting in the faces of God and the people who love you. You were given the gift of existing, and your only job in repaying that gift is to live by striving for joy. That can seem so impossible in the darkest moments, but speaking from someone who has lived under a blanket, refusing to move for years, I can tell you that the brightest side is so difficult and so worth it.

As Cara would say, I'm wearing my encouragement hat today.