Throughout our lives, we all fill such a wide range of roles. During any given moment I am playing the role of sister, friend, and/or daughter. I am a student and a mentor, a dreamer and a do-er. Some days I am thankful for my many roles and others I find myself feeling defeated and on the verge of giving up. You - the beautiful soul reading this - have likely gone through a similar emotional roller coaster with your own roles and opportunities in your own life.

I find it both inspiring and discouraging to think that at the age of 21, I have absolutely no idea what battles and triumphs lie ahead. Maybe I will win the lottery 10 years from now and find myself volunteering half-way around the globe. Maybe in 10 years I will look back and realize I have zero interest in anything which I currently am passionate about.

When I was 11-years-old, I thought maybe one day I would be a nurse. I was hoping that at 21-years-old I would have gotten through my brace-face days and that I would have met the love of my life. I thought maybe I would go back to Texas to attend college and would have at least 5 dogs.

I look back and I have to laugh. I had no idea how wonderful and messy my life would be. Beautiful, that is the only word to describe this crazy mess that I have called my life over the past 10 years. I ended up going to a university that is only a 45-minute drive away from my parents' house, yet I still miss them every day. I have zero dogs of my own, but I cannot describe the joy I feel when I get the chance to go back and visit our family dogs and our cat - I did not know that I was capable of loving a cat.

It is only now that I recognize that all of the most wonderful, incredible things that have happened in my life were almost entirely by accident. How could I have imagined opportunities that I did not even expect to earn/ receive? It is for this reason that I find the idea of being clueless about my true future to be somewhat inspirational.

However, all of the most painful times of my life came without any expectations as well. Blindsided. I was completely blindsided each time true pain and loss struck. Whenever true suffering happens it is never convenient and we never see it happening. True pain, there is no description for it so we use gory terms such as heart-wrenching and hollowing. Although imagining pain as a heart being pulled out of a body or a tool which hollows out a person's insides is a terrifying visualization, these metaphors do not bring justice to the pain which is felt in times of true tragedy. The truth is, when horrible things do happen, you will wish that it were as simple as someone tearing your heart out of your body, because at least then the pain would be visible, and at least then the damage done would end your life and therefore your suffering. But if the good part is that painful events do not end the life of those they seem to hurt most.

If you are denied the chance to power through the loss and stick it out, then you will not get to experience what it means to truly feel joy and love. It may not happen for years, decades even, but it is my experience that the greater the pain, the greater the privilege when we are happy no matter how short or long the moment. The first time I cried tears of joy, I was a junior in high school, the second time was when I was a junior in college. These moments of pure joy were inspired both times by various degrees of pain beforehand. It is for this reason that I am grateful for the loss and pain I was experiencing because, without this, I would still have yet to experience 'happy tears'.

I am aware that this may come off as a jumbled up mess of words, but I am currently incapable of re-arranging these words to make better sense. Essentially what I am trying to say is let's all take time today to reflect on how magical life can be. Let's reflect on the tragedies and the triumphs of our past and feel truly grateful for all of the experiences we have had that we would never in our wildest dreams have imagined.

If you have read this far, then I am truly amazed. My challenge to you- the wonderful, beautiful soul who has made it thus far - is to come up with a list. Come up with a list of the tragedies and triumphs you have experienced. When you are done with this list, I want you to celebrate the fact that you have no way of knowing what life has in store for you. It can be scary, but once we learn to celebrate all of the happy little accidents life has in store, the easier it will be to accept the struggles we must also face in the future. Serendipity.