One whole year. One year since what will feel like the hardest day of your life. The day you think you’ll never be able to get through, the day you’re feeling like your entire world is shattering. Granted, it is traumatic and will be hard to say the least, but the changes you’re going to be forced to go through will make you an entirely new person, so be thankful for that. You will no longer be overly anxious, jealous, and full of feelings of mistrust and anger that you’ve carried for the last three years. And although your heart will hurt and feel empty for a long time, it will slowly but surely begin to be filled with happiness that you create for yourself, and you will now have more room for the joy that you don’t yet realize you’ve been missing for so long. There’s going to be so many people who try to tell you to move on quicker, or that you shouldn’t be sad for so long and that you should just get over it, but you’ll take your time and take care of your heart exactly how you need to and you will make it out on the other side just fine. Only you will know the depths of what you’re feeling and how it’s affecting you, and you’ll be careful about how you chose to let yourself heal, and that’s the most important thing.
You’ll gain some amazing new friends like Natalie, who will teach you to never let other people make your feelings seem wrong or invalid, and eventually you’ll realize that God had to take someone out of your life to open up space for special people like her. You’ll also realize that you’ve had some damn good friends beside you all along, like Abby and your roommates, and you’ll learn how to be a better friend to them and you’ll create bonds with these people like you’ve never had before. You will also surprise yourself at how well you can do in school, despite your circumstances. And soon you’ll get into grad school, a dream you’ve had for so long, and you’ll feel nothing but pride when you think about how you were able to do it by yourself and make all of your own choices without having to consider anyone else.
Along the way you’ll discover new passions, like poetry and photography, which will allow you to find new joys outside of the things that you used to love but now seem tainted with sad memories. You will learn you are nothing short of strong and capable, and the insecurities and doubts you have about yourself will slowly drip away as you bloom into the woman you always wanted to be, but seemed just out of reach. You’ll realize that you never actually needed another person there to make you feel loved and beautiful and powerful; all of those things were inside you the whole time, but you’ll need this experience to access them.
Be prepared for the hard times, because they will come and they’ll last for awhile. First the days of nothing but sadness and nights spent crying in the bathroom floor, then it’ll progress to loneliness and emptiness and feeling pretty numb about everything, and then you’ll move on to anger and resentment. It will be extremely frustrating because you’ll want to move on and forget so badly, but these things can’t be rushed. In the end, you’ll be thankful for having all of those negative emotions because you’ll be able to recognize genuine joy and happiness and appreciate it more and not take it for granted. These experiences with emotion will also give you a whole new perspective on mental health, and what someone in this type of situation really needs.
The next year will hold some of the hardest days you’ve experienced so far, but in the end you’ll know it was all necessary to become the person you have the potential to be. You will be so much more carefree and happy, you’ll have a super cool streak of blue hair and a new cartilage piercing, and you won’t sweat all the small stuff in life anymore because you’ll finally realize that it’s all small stuff. You will finally have some nerve and learn to speak up for yourself and not be so afraid to upset people or deal with confrontation when you need to. You will learn the true meaning of self-care and love, and to always value your own happiness at least as much, if not more, than others. But among all of this, the best thing you will feel is comfort in knowing that all of this is happening for a reason, and even though you can’t see it yet, eventually you’ll feel peace about this and know without a doubt that you are better off and so much stronger now. The most important thing to remember is that the sun will, in fact, rise tomorrow – so rise with it.