Sometimes when I lay in bed all I can hear is the tick-tock of the clock. As if reminding me that life goes on. That no matter what I faced that day the world kept turning. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling.

The other day as I was going through a photo box a recent picture of me fell out. Just plain old me on it, a close up of my face, my face with a few bruises and tubes. I searched the girls eyes, the girl that was staring at me. I tore my own picture and threw it in the trash… She disgusted me. I went and laid down on my bed, closing my eyes, trying to clear my mind.

But all I could think about was that girl torn into tiny fragments with nothing to do but sit and wait to be made whole again. At that moment I knew the answer to my prayers. I got up, grabbed the trashcan and poured its contents onto the floor in front of me. I grabbed a piece of paper and some glue, laid it in front of me and poured the fragments on it.

I was determined to put it back together. I knew it wasn’t something I could do quickly. It would take time for me to learn to deal with it. I would add pieces day by day, slowly so it wouldn’t hurt as much. “It’s not a switch you can just flip off” my psychologist had told me once, meaning what I had gone through “Admitting that and everything that happened in your life is a part of letting go.” I have to accept the girl in the picture, who I was slowly piecing together each day. The girl with the red, watery eyes, and the fading and fresh bruises, who kept drowning slowly by choice. It hurts me to even think of her. But she was a part of me. As big a part as what I’d been before her. For they make the person I am today.

There are so many moments in my life I wish I could go back to, hitting the stop button at just one moment to stop everything that came after it. I have so many “if only’s”. But each place I thought I could push stop meant missing something that came after it, like the lessons I’ve learned and the strength I’ve recovered. I need it all, in the end, to make my own story find its finale.

In the past years I’ve managed to lose more than I had, and just when I would think things couldn’t get worse, they would. For a long time I felt unable to go forward. I felt stuck in the middle of a nightmare. I felt like my life didn’t belong to me. My life had been going at full speed for so long and it had just stopped, like running into a big brick wall, knocking the wind and the fight right out of me.

Sometimes our vision only clears after our eyes are washed away with tears. Maybe I had to lose everything to be able to appreciate what I have. Maybe it took for me to be stripped bare to realize how strong I really was. Maybe I had to lose all of me to be able to see what makes me… me. It might not be much but it’s enough to get me through. We all have moments of desperation. When we face our issues head on that’s when we find out just how strong we are.

After a really hard couple of years I’m beginning to find my way. Everything seems to be getting a little easier. And I find myself smiling and laughing again. I’m learning to push a little harder, give a little more, and not to give up as easily. I’m learning to forgive myself and others. I find myself starting all over again. I’m scared and everything is an effort. But I’ve spent too many years watching my life pass me by and I’ve decided those days are gone.

Sometimes we have to suffer through our mistakes. Sometimes life's not fair, but you just gotta hang in there. You just have to believe things will work out like they should. Time is my friend; it will help me erase all the bitter tears away so things won’t seem so tragic after all. Meanwhile I’m letting go of my past, of the things I cannot fix, of the wounds that won’t seem to heal. I won’t give up, I won’t give in. I’ll find ways around the memories.

With the struggles, the heartaches, and the pain comes lessons learned. And there’s so much I’ve learned and am learning. It’s summer now and I’m a little bruised, a little humbled, and a little smarter. My skin is a little bit thicker and my heart a little bit stronger. And for the first time in a long time it feels like the burden has been lifted, like the fever finally breaks.

It comes to show that no matter how harsh life can be, no matter how many bad cards life deals you, or how many harsh blows it throws at you-- there is always hope. In the end there is always healing and growing…

I’m opening up a whole new chapter in my life, and blank pages that await to be written with stories. So as I sit here looking out as the sun sets ending the day, I await for tomorrow. After all it’s only the end of the beginning…