Usually when I sit down to write, I get really fired up and some sarcasm - fueled piece comes out. Today is a little different; I'm reflecting on the past year. In the past 365 days, I've made a home at RIT & many friends that I don't ever want to lose. I have also lost a lot of people in the last 365 days, nearly losing myself in the process. This last year has beat me up countless times and tested me in every way. When I thought things couldn't get worse, they did.

Shit happens.

Sometimes shit happens on a really good day. The sun is shining, you're ahead of all of your coursework, you're having a great time. And then shit happens.

You may fail a class, or get broken up with, or have to take a friend to the hospital. Shit happens. Sometimes you lose the people that you care most about and thought that you couldn't live without. Sometimes they just walk away, or you have to watch them become a new person that you can't stand to even look at. Shit happens.

It's not enough to just say that shit happens and ignore it. You need to deal with it. If your friend is suicidal and needs help, it needs to be dealt with. Be there for them. I had to watch a suicidal friend (X) lose their closest friends because those friends were too scared of having to deal with the loss of the friend to try to stick around. Somehow, X made it through; they had shit happen to them and they dealt with it. I stuck around and helped them, because shit happens and it needs to be dealt with.

Shit needs to be dealt with. I watched my best friend turn into someone that was emotionally abusive and toxic, knowing that there was nothing I could do about it. They were hurting and there was nothing I could do to stop it, except take the brunt of their pain. Emotional abuse from anyone is not to be tolerated, so if you can't have a healthy relationship with someone, then don't even bother being around. I tried to help, but it almost ruined me. Shit happens and sometimes you just gotta walk away.

All kinds of shit happens throughout your lifetime. That's what life is and that's how it works. What happens says nothing about you, but how you handle it says everything about you. So what you need to do is go out and handle the shit that life deals you. Shit happens. Don't let it ruin you. You might lose people that you love, but you can't let those things ruin you. The shit in your life needs to be dealt with so that it doesn't ruin the good things in life. Those are the things that you need to hang onto.