I’m grateful my life fell apart.
That’s not something you hear often from people, nor is it something that you would necessarily expect to hear.
Everyone has moments where they think to themselves, “Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me, of all people?”
I’m a big advocate of the sentiment that everything happens for a reason. The unfortunate part about this sentiment is that you usually don’t know the reason until later down the road.
A year ago, my life collapsed in front of me. Everything that I thought I had and everything I thought I was pretty much ceased to exist.
It left me adrift. Lost, confused, hurt and most of all, with a deeply rooted anger slithering beneath my skin.
I spent most of last summer reflecting on my life, what I had done right, what I had done wrong and the general limbo of the in-between.
No matter how hard I tried, I could not conceive a good enough answer to why I was experiencing these apparent and unappreciated life punishments.
It didn’t click until October.
I started working at the Torch in early October, and with my first article, I felt as though I had bit off more than I could chew. I was scared, petrified really, but I figured go big or go home.
It seemingly worked out just fine.
Over the next few months, I would have my ups and downs with this job, but more importantly, I had an increasing sense of belonging and joy.
It isn’t like the movies. There’s no grandiose moment of clarity where the clouds part and the sun shines down on you with the birds singing, and suddenly everything is back to being amazing.
It was more of this increasing sense of security washing over me as the weeks wore on. I made new friends, I did things on campus and I took opportunities that I never would have taken. In a way, I felt myself thriving.
It began to make sense. I went through all that pain because it made me grow. I needed to grow to take an opportunity like the Torch. I needed an opportunity like the Torch because it crossed my path with some of the most amazing and supportive people, I’ve ever had the privilege of sharing my life with.
I never would have taken the opportunities I have if it hadn’t been for the previous version of my life coming to an end.
Life is hard, but it is also beautiful. The difficult moments are there to pave the way for happier ones down the line. How can you know you are happy if you’ve never been sad?
Reframing my perspective on this aspect of life has dramatically changed how I view these difficult times. The pain, the anger, the grief, these things are also gifts.
Though I wouldn’t have said it a year ago, it is a gift to exist. With that existence comes some form of suffering, and unfortunately there’s no real way around that.
One thing I have learned is that the most positive thing you can do for yourself is to express gratitude for your life.
If you are grateful for your life, you must be grateful for all of it. You cannot pick and choose what you want to be grateful for.
I am grateful for the difficult parts of my life because they have brought me some of my happiest. They also made me into who I am today.
I am kinder. I take things less seriously. I let myself have fun, I enjoy my time with my friends and I give myself grace. I love other people deeply without being embarrassed or regretful of it. I don’t pretend to be nonchalant, because I am not.
These changes have made me the Emma that you know. There’s nothing wrong with the versions of me that you don’t know, but I am grateful that I get to share this one with you.
I hope that, if you are going through a rough patch in life, you will one day see that it brought you something positive.
It may not make sense now, but it will, in its own strange way, make sense someday.