I love my life, but...

Everything's not okay...but it will be. Maybe not everything is so bad. There is still a lot of good going on in my life, but I'm definitely going through the hardest time I've ever been through in my entire life. That probably sounds dramatic, but I'm a nineteen-year-old girl. I haven't lived long enough to experience the truly awful.

I'm about to start my second year of university, which will be my first year of my new major (electrical engineering!). I'm SUPER excited, but also a little scared. These past two semesters were pretty rough.

I did some good things and some bad things.
I felt my happiest and my saddest.
But most importantly, I learned a whole lot. Not just about multivariable calculus and organic chemistry and all of those lovely things, but about the world and myself, too.

I think maturity is finding out that the world isn't as nice as you'd like it to be and that your mother isn't always right. And that sometimes you need to feel like your world is falling apart just so that you can find out later that everything will be okay.

My experiences don't define me. Neither do my choices. Nonetheless, I choose to identify as a sexual assault survivor and a person in recovery.

It's so easy to become cynical and I actually think that's the first response to have. I was so full of angst and self-pity for a while (and even thought about changing the name of my Tumblr to "Nineteen and Jaded"! Glad I didn't...). But throughout this entire part of my life, I've decided that in order to take care of myself, I need to look at these past events as a positive experience and, even though it's extremely difficult sometimes, to stay optimistic.

I stopped posting, creating and basically being myself for these past months. But the last time I was in a bad place, these were the things that helped me heal. And I'm extremely excited to be back! (Hopefully for realsies this time!)

I love my life, but even though it's been rough, I wouldn't change a single thing.