Sometimes we lose people in life. Whether that be through death, a fight with a friend, a breakup, etc. People leave, people change, people abandon, people are summoned, and people become lost. The question of life is not simply will this person leave my side, the question becomes when will this happen, how, and of course the dreaded... why? In some cases, referring to a fight with a friend or a nasty breakup with a partner, the person you lose returns back to you at some point in your life, and you pick up right where you left off. In other scenarios, this is not the case, and some of your most thought-provoking questions never receive answers, yet you’re forced to keep going, to see a new day.

See now, when you lose someone, you shouldn’t be focused on the whys, hows, whens, wheres, and never-ending questions of the world, you should be focused on one question. A very simple question actually… What can I do so that I make sure I don’t lose my own self during this tribulation? Because losing someone important in your life is never an easy thing to grasp, but losing yourself through the process becomes the most painful peace of it all.

Life has many ups and downs, and everyone experiences changes to a different degree, and at different times in their life. For me, being only nineteen years old, I know that I have many more ups in my life that will come, and also many more downs that will be even harder than the ones I’ve already faced. However, I know that if I know myself, those downs will only get easier for me to handle.

So far, I’ve found the key to not losing yourself is to be aware of the specific qualities that make you, you. If you truly know who you are inside, then no one, or nothing, can ever take that away from you.

Now that becomes the challenging part.

Because figuring out who you are, the small details of your heart, how your mind works, how you form thoughts, what makes you tick, figuring out your purpose, is the most challenging journey.

Personally, in these early nineteen years of my life, I’ve found myself to have one of the biggest hearts, I’ve found out that I can be predictable at times, and unpredictable in others, and I’ve found myself to be a more caring individual than I ever realized. But, I know that there is still so much to learn. In fact, I don’t think we ever truly stop learning about ourselves. We evolve and change every day, and we must try to keep up with ourselves as we do.

Truthfully, I believe that you will never know every detail about yourself, but it is never too late to start trying to discover.

Now of course, besides losing someone important to you, there are other things that life might throw at you where you feel like you've lost your way. People get stressed out about their jobs, become wrapped up in family situations, struggle with school and worry about the future, etc. But by even just knowing who you are, the small challenges, and the big ones, all start to seem a little more manageable.

Because finding out who you really are on the inside and out, can only help you. It can only help you be more aware of yourself and your impression on the lives of others. It can only help you when dealing with problems too hard to grasp. And it can only help you find inner peace when you lose someone or something that you never imagined losing.

The fact of life is that you will lose something/someone dear to your heart at some point in your own life, but don’t lose yourself with them.

If you really know yourself, you can never truly be lost.