On The Road To Happiness

A few months ago my world kind of just stopped.

This time last year my life seemed like it was in the perfect place, I was happy. I had amazing friends, an even more amazing family, and I was over all just in a really great place in my life.

But then my mom got sick along with my two grandfathers. Life just got, sad. There’s really no other way to put it. I had three extremely important people in my life pass away within a few months of each other. Loss is difficult, I understand that, but having to watch my mom suffer for the summer and pass away at such a young age in my life really effected me in a way that I don’t think many people can understand. I just couldn’t be the same constantly happy, and positive person I was before this.

Surprisingly though I didn’t get as depressed as I expected to. Obviously it was a lot to handle and didn’t really come as an initial shock at first but when it hit, it hit hard. But, as known from previous posts of mine I got through this by following in my moms footsteps of staying positive and doing as she would want me to do. Yet, even with this I was never happy. I felt like I could never be happy again.
 I’ve currently been doing a lot of thinking and realized that maybe I was wrong about my happiness. I have come to the conclusion that I’ll always have this emptiness inside me, this feeling like I’ll always be missing something since the loss of my mom, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t be happy. In fact, I’m pretty happy with my life right now.

In January I left to go abroad to Florence, Italy for four months. This was probably the riskiest and scariest thing I’ve ever done. I lost three family members only a few months before, I was in no condition to be leaving my family, it was my first time traveling alone, I didn’t know anyone else going on the trip, and I’ve never been on a plane before. Yet, somehow, I got myself to do it after a few hours of crying and freaking out. Before coming here I was so nervous for how everything would turn out. I had such a crappy previous few months and it was hard to believe anything in my life would turn out decent. But, I was seriously wrong.

I fell in love with Florence the minute I walked through the airport doors outside. Culture shock never hit me for a moment. My roommates and I instantly clicked and I can tell I’ve met some life long best friends already. I’ve booked trips to other countries and I’m experiencing a whole new culture. Along with the amazing opportunity and experiences I have being abroad, I have my family at home, which is currently stronger than ever since we have had to support each other so much lately, as well as all of my friends at home who have basically become family. All is well. Sure there are some aspects of my life I wish I could change but after everything I’ve been through, I’ve learned to appreciate more and be grateful for what I have, especially the people in my life.

So, I guess the point of all of this is to show that yeah I’ve been through absolute hell lately, but I’m getting back to where I was. Regardless of what anyone is going through, you can make it through. It’s not easy, in fact its extremely difficult, but if you learn to pick yourself up it’ll be okay. You can’t change what has happened to you, so accept that, but you can change your future. I’ve experienced one of my worst nightmares in my life at the age of twenty by losing my mom. I have my hard moments and cry myself to sleep most nights, but I’m also enjoying my life and repairing myself after what I’ve been put through. I’ll always be missing a piece of me, but things are looking up for once. For once in months, I see a light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel. For once, I’m finally on the road back to happiness.