because the sun keeps rising

A little over a year ago, I wrote my first blog post in the hopes that sharing my story would be the first step in healing my very broken heart. I remember writing, and backspacing, and crying, and really having no idea how to convey everything that I was feeling, but I also remember knowing that I had to keep writing, because with each story I told, each post I published, I was taking control of everything that was happening and somehow figuring it all out. My first post was titled "the sun will rise again." Whenever anything bad happened, most people would respond by telling me that tomorrow is a new day, that things would get better. It sounds like good advice, but it's also really hard to take when it seems impossible to get through the next hour- let alone an entire day. Either way though, I knew deep down that things would get better. I would wake up the next morning and little by little things would start looking up, they had to. Sadly in Milwaukee the sun does not shine a whole lot, but it always rises whether or not I see it. The clouds of depression and grief ruined a lot of really sunny days for me, but I knew that one day things would be better. and I held on to that when I couldn't find anything else to hold on to. 

It's kinda surreal to sit in my dorm room a year later and think about everything that happened last year. In a lot of ways it feels like just yesterday, but in others it feels like a lifetime ago. It is so hard to admit sometimes. I love Marquette and my life in Milwaukee, and it is difficult to think about how bad things were freshman year. I wanted so desperately to be a normal college student who moved in on the first day freshman year and had the time of her life, never looking back. Even still I don't know how I let things get so bad, how I let grief get the best of me over and over again. Somehow I made it though. The sun kept rising, and slowly things really did get better and better like everyone told me they would.

I'd like to say I am 100%, but I know I still have a long way to go. I also know that I have incredible people and opportunities in my life, and I have a long list of angels to thank for that, for guiding me along the right path, and for keeping me strong even when I didn't want to be. There are a lot of things I still need to figure out, a lot of unknowns and a lot of growing left to do. But I do know that next year will be better, I know that the sun will keep rising, and I now know that I am strong enough to get through my darkest days.

 In the last year I have spent a lot of days hoping for a better tomorrow, I am happy to say that I think I have finally found it.