This I Believe

Finding the Good Things Through the Bad

               I believe that we appreciated good things in our lives so much more once we’ve experienced bad things.

That belief became clear to me during my last year of high school. The first day of school, I was expecting to be greeted by my friends, but I never saw them. I went about my boring day at school, and when lunch time came, I thought for sure they would find me. I sat down on a bench and waited for them to join me. That lunch break ended up being the longest and most humiliating lunch break of my entire life. No one showed up.

I started to think that maybe they couldn’t find me. Maybe they had something to do. Then I started to think, what if it’s me? What if I did something to upset them? I was soon to find out that someone I thought I could trust had hurt me in the most unimaginable way possible.

The previous year, there was a girl who had no friends. Her name was Taylor. She sat alone, worked alone, and she didn’t say much. I didn’t want her to go through the whole school year like that, because I know how hard it is to make friends. I decided I would introduce her to my friends, and try and boost her confidence. We hit it off pretty well, and before I knew it, she had joined my circle of friends. It was great for the time being.  However, my last year of high school was the year that I saw her true colors.

I eventually saw my friends in the hall, but they didn’t seem happy to see me. I asked them where they had been that day I ate lunch alone. They told me that they couldn’t find me. I was a little skeptical, I must admit. It wasn’t like them to just leave me behind, and not let me know what was going on. The next day, I saw them as I was walking into school. I told them where to meet me for lunch, and I thought for sure they would come. Well… they didn’t. I walked around the school trying to find them. I went out to the parking lot, and suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blue car driving by. It was them. They were leaving to go out to lunch, and guess who was in the front seat, Taylor. When they saw me, a couple of them ducked down, the driver sped up to pass me, and Taylor pointed at me and laughed. I was crushed. I knew exactly what was going on.

I had no one. I was alone, and I didn’t understand why.

What had she said to them to make them leave me? Had I done something wrong? Who else had heard the lies that she spread, and if they had, would they ever talk to me again?

I was so ashamed to go home and tell my mom. For a whole two weeks, I lied to her and told her that my friends were all doing great, and that I was having a pretty good year. I never told her that I sat alone in my car and ate lunch by myself.  She knew something was wrong though. She’s a mom. Moms always know best. I finally snapped, and told her everything that was going on, but instead of feeling ashamed, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I felt like someone finally understood how I felt, and I finally had someone to trust. I hadn’t been very close to my mom for a while, but honestly, she is the only reason I was able to finish off my last year of high school without feeling completely alone. She is my rock. She was always there for me, but I never saw it until the storm hit, and I needed shelter. Now we’re closer than ever.

The point of this story is this. When things are going wrong, we forget to notice all of the things that are going right. We need to remind ourselves that life happens, and things go wrong, but there is always a light on the other end. Though it may have its occasional bumps, life does get better. If we didn’t have bad days, struggles, and stress, we wouldn’t know how to appreciate the simple things in life that make us happy. We wouldn’t be able to see what was clearly in front of us all along, and good things wouldn’t seem so special to us if we didn’t have bad things in our lives.