One Year

One year. One year full of change, of healing, of regaining sense of who I am. I've made mistakes, and I've learned my lessons. I've mended broken friendships that are better now than they've ever been. I've put myself out there like I've never done before. Most importantly, I've become stronger and more independent than ever before in my entire life. I am no longer looking for gratification in others. I don't need financial stability from a man, I can do things on my own. I'm in control of my life and my aura, and it has taken me one year to figure it all out.

Over this last year I have gone through a rollercoaster of highs and lows. I was diagnosed with depression. I broke things off with a boy I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I graduated college. I moved to the big city and got a big girl job. I reconnected with old friends, whilst gaining new and amazing ones. I lost my best friend, my hero, my grandmother to a repulsive disease.

I'm not looking for handouts or your sympathy. I simply want to be the voice that you hear when things get tough. I want to be the one to tell you to just breathe because it gets better. When you stop thinking about what others think or how they will react to situations and choices you've made to better your life, and start thinking about yourself and how you can make you happy. That is really when you start to look at you different.

I was at the point in my life last year where I couldn't. I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't get out of bed. Every thought I had was negative. I stepped out of my house and had this deep, dark, cloud hanging over my head. A negative aura that I masked with lipstick and perfume. I knew people wouldn't be able to tell that something was off because I had become my own master at hiding my pain behind the smile I had plastered on my face while being out in public.

Behind closed doors was when I felt like I could finally stop playing charades. I didn't have to smile at every person that walked past me. I didn't have to create small talk. I could let my brain scream at me. I could let my mind wonder to the unknowns of darkness, but better yet, I didn't have to pretend that I was okay.

I grew to hate myself. I told myself my life didn't matter. I wasn't anything special. I pushed my friends away because I didn't want them to know how I truly felt about myself. I constantly told my parents I was fine, but really I was up all hours of the night trying to convince myself that I had a place here on earth for a reason. Some nights I truly believed I did and other nights, not so much. I looked at every situation negatively. I would wake up and have no energy to even get out of bed.

When you dig your own grave is when it truly becomes that much harder to pull yourself out. You think you have no self-worth, and your brain starts to recognize the feeling and puts it into actions. I think the hardest part about feeling the way I felt was that nobody around me knew how hurt and broken I was, and when I finally snapped, nobody knew what to say because they had never felt the way I was feeling, so they couldn't relate to my situation.

Nothing makes you feel more secluded than somebody looking at you and giving you advice on how to be happy. Sure, it's great that they want to help you, but it doesn't. At least for me it didn't. I had somebody tell me to "slap a smile on" and count my blessings. OK. If I could, I would have welcomed them into my brain for a day. Show you that me counting my blessings couldn't hold a torch to the thoughts and the feelings I had rattled up in my disconfigured thought process. Sure, we all have people that care about us and want us to be at an all-time high all the time, but it doesn't work like that.

What people don't know is that it takes time before you can even do that. You will be the one to know when the healing process begins. You have to be the one to want to change the way you view yourself daily. It could take a couple months, it could take a year, but when you know, you know, and when it happens, you'll feel this rush of love from everybody around. The feeling of loneliness washes away. Like self-doubt and pity aren't holding your head under the water. Like you've been reborn a new person who sees light instead of just the dark.

Don't get me wrong, I still have days that I all I want to do is go home, jump in the shower, and have myself a good cry, but those days are starting to disappear bit by bit. I don't think they will ever go away, but it isn't an everyday reassurance. I suppressed the things I loved to do because I didn't want to feel good about doing them. I wanted to stay miserable and not enjoy the things that made me happy. Now I wake up and tell myself today is going to be better than yesterday. I don't dread getting out of bed, and I don't have to mask my emptiness with blush and mascara.

One year. It took me one year to go from the lowest I have ever been to slowly finding my worth and place here on earth. You'll find it, too. I can't be the one to tell you when you will start to feel it, but you will. It takes time and it takes you and only you. It will be worth it because you are worth it. Every ounce of you is worth it.