I don’t like to think back to the broken, fragile girl I once was.

Yet, here I am. Reflecting on the once-shattered pieces of myself that I try my best to leave behind.

You see, nobody said that life was easy. It doesn't come with a warning label, a how-to-guide or any semblance of knowing what it might throw at you. Life just happens and it's your job to roll with the punches, even if they hit you along the way.

I got to a point in my life where I felt like the world was out to get me. I was made to feel unaccepted, unwanted and worthless for no reason. It was pathetic, really, that in the most pivotal point of a teenager's life they're made to feel as though they didn't belong, that they weren't like the rest of the people around them, even though they were.

The unexplainable grudge that hung over my life for several years tortured me day and night. I clung to any ounce of acceptance I had and I put my faith in the wrong people and friendships just to have them crumble from beneath me several days later because of the hatefulness and unacceptance around them.

I never understood why people didn’t like me. I was involved in school clubs, I was kind to everyone I met, I played sports and I cared deeply about my education. I was just like everyone else— so, where was the issue?

I was twelve-years-old when I collapsed against my mother for the first time. The cries that wracked my body made my legs too weak to hold the heartbreak that was weighing me down inside. My world had been jarred in the form of a text message telling me I was too different to be friends with someone. The next day I would walk the hallways alone with swollen eyes and a broken smile. This happened more times than I care to say, and thus, a strong dislike to those who had burned me grew beneath the sliver of optimism I had remaining.

I fast forward to where I am now and the aversion I felt remains but seems to be mutual. I see people from my past a couple of times per week in passing, and we overlook eye contact, we bypass necessary aisles in the local Target store and we bury our faces in our cell phones-- but why?I feel as though I have reasons to do as such, but do they? Is it that they feel shame for their past actions or is it that they still maintain that unexplainable dislike toward me that they've held for so many years? I don't know, nor will I ever.

What I do know, however, is that it's time to grow up. It's time to forget the past and your mistakes and move forward. I'm at the point in my life where I am ready to forgive, I'm ready to move on with my life, I'm ready to say hello and smile, even if I don't receive the same response in return. I'm tired of hiding for reasons I don't even know. I once saw a quote that read: "Forgiveness is taking the knife out your own back and not using it to hurt anyone else, no matter how they hurt you." I want to do that. I want to start living for me and not the weak, broken girl that I used to be.

I write these words and I cry. I cry for the broken girl who was once overwhelmed by hopelessness. I cry for the broken girl who time and time again picked herself up, dusted herself off, and persevered. I cry for the broken girl who found hope and comfort when she felt most alone. I cry for her acceptance of the fact that it's okay to hold grudges, but that there comes a point where you need to let them go. But most of all, I cry happy tears for the woman that the broken girl has become-- I cry for her successes and the fact that she'll never feel broken again. This isn't a story about what it feels like to be broken, but rather a story of how despite the trials and tribulations life throws at you, despite your lowest of lows, one can still hope.