Hope

Hope has always been a concept that has intrigued me. I never understood why I had it but still something I believed I needed growing up. Things were extremely difficult and even harder to handle at such a young age but I kept doing. I kept pushing through.

I had to continuously tell myself that things would get better. If I didn't hope for a better life or believe that having a better life was even possible, I'm sure I would have given up a long time ago.

I remember how angry and upset I would get when I would try so hard to make things better but something out of my control would make things terrible. I remember how hurt and let down I would feel but I would still hope for a better tomorrow. And again I would try everything I could to make things better or at least you make someone else feel better.

I remember making others feel better was something I was good at. Everyone would come to me with their problems so we could try to fix them together. I cared a lot about other people and had so much hope for them as well. I believed that life would get better for them as well.

Then I remember not being able to handle it anymore. Everybody's problems became my own. I was so consumed by trying to help them that I was not paying attention to my own needs. This was the day I had my first anxiety attack in front of everyone at school. Something in me snapped that day. Even though that happened, I still had hope.

I began to isolate myself, not really talking to anyone anymore. I remember how angry people got when I couldn't help them with their problems. It only pushed me further into isolation. I thought they would understand but I was very wrong. There were only a couple of people who did and they are still my friends to this day.

Because of these few people, I still had hope that things would be alright. They didn't expect anything out of me; they just simply enjoyed my company. I can't stress how important these people are in my life. They gave me hope and pulled me slightly out of isolation.

It's very difficult to deal with this life all alone. The loneliness starts to drag you down. It starts to make you lose sight of what's important. It starts to make you lose hope.

This is when I realized that hope comes from those moments of pure joy. We hang onto those moments because we want more of them. We hope for more of them because they made things better. They made this life feel better.

In those moments of joy there was no pain from this world. In those moments, the bad ones would fade away. These moments were the reason I tried to make things better. These moments gave me hope.

For me, it was better to try to separate myself from the people trying to force their problems onto me without even caring about my own. In the end, they were only using me to help themselves. They never truly cared about me. I also realized that I needed to focus on my own issues and not just push them aside like they didn't exist. I think that was easier for me at the time but in the end it only hurt me.

To anyone out there struggling with difficult times, please remember to have hope. Remember the good moments. Try to focus on those and keep trying to make things better. I know it seems never ending but I'm living proof that hope wins.