As a child, I was incredibly ambitious. I didn’t have a dream job just yet, but I knew I wanted to take all the right steps in that direction. I was put into so many activities that I enjoyed, and I believed that I was so lucky to have everything I did. Certain events began to put me in my place, and I took those and used them as a means of growth. My idea of development was that it had to be through traumatic events. I let horrible things happen to myself because I believed that it would be the steps to what a better, brighter, stronger me. But in the end, all it did was tear me down little by little, like a paper slowly being ripped apart. My friends and I used to make paper airplanes, and when the tip was blunt from hitting too many surfaces, we would light them on fire and throw them down onto the concrete. It was so much easier watching those planes go down in flames than it was to watch my life do the same. I never once imagined that, maybe, if I tried, I wouldn’t have to endure everything I was. Growth doesn’t always come from bad things. It’s common to think that once you get through the hard times, everything will be better and you just have to keep going, but sometimes it’s too much. Every time I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see a person that was enduring; I saw a person who was miserable and wanted out of my cage no matter what. The paper planes never rose from the ashes, so why did I think I could?

I do think that being put in a tough situation and being able to prosper from it is amazing, but I wasn’t thinking in that sense. I wasn’t able to see a seed that was buried beneath the dirt, yet able to sprout and grow into a plant, but I saw a piece of paper folded and thrown until it became one with the ground.

I’ve slowly been trying to change that. I no longer want to let everything burn down, but I want to thrive and succeed when I’m at my lowest point. I want to be able to plant roots in my past and use them to create my future. I haven’t done much yet, but my current goal is to be able to look in the mirror and see myself, not just an empty shell willing to sit there and go up in flames.