"For what it's worth: It's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find that you're not, I hope that you find the strength to start over"
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Life is all about the success you have, the mistakes you've made, the people you meet, and the person you are. All of this is connected, even when you don't want it to be. You make numerous mistakes to finally get it right and be successful. The people you meet help or hurt you and it builds you as a person. And finally, most importantly, the person that you are determines the life you will have. If you are a very negative person, more things in life will seem like they are the worst thing in the world and no matter what, 'the good' is the last thing you see. If you are a positive person, all you see is the good in everything. I believe that every person is negative and positive. That we let one overpower the other, but they are both always inside of us. We all see it too, even if we don't like to talk about it. I have had this issue a lot lately. When I was a kid, I was the most outgoing person my mom knew. I would tell my whole life story to every person I came across. I wasn't afraid of the people I would meet and the fact that these people might be 'bad people.' If they could listen, I talked.

As I got older, things slowly started to change, as most things do in life. I went through many phases in my teen years. I was outgoing one month, alone the next, would talk to a few select people, then back to none and it would start all over again. I started to learn about the negative parts of life and I let that define who I was going to be as a person.

I wasn't a negative person 100% of the time, but those times I was, most of my friends and family wouldn't want to be around me. I was that type of negative person who brought everyone else down with me purposely. This went on for multiple years.

However, I started to become more like the person I am now around 19-20 years old. I stopped caring about what other people thought. I knew that some days I would have good days and some days I would have bad days. It is human nature. I just taught myself that on the bad days, I had to disconnect from people so they wouldn't be pulled down with me. I had many months of time where depression hit hard. There was a lot of things going on in my head, and I succumbed to the negative aspects of life. I stopped calling my family unless I needed help. My friends dwindled down to about 2 that I would talk to. I cut everyone off because I had thought that it was better that way. I let the negative win.

2015 and 2016 were, without a doubt, the hardest years of my life. It was a time when I was drowning in this negative head space. I had lost my great-grandmother, grandmother and dad all a few months apart from each other. I put on a happy face when I would be around my mom or my sister's kids. I also kept that happy face when we were around other people or I had to talk on the phone with someone. I didn't let people know how bad I was truly hurting. How bad I was suffocating on the inside. I felt like everyone I talked to was all dealing with the same thing as I was, so why would I bother them with what was going on in my head? Finally, my sister who I live with sat me down and told me I needed to talk. She knew I wasn't me, and I wasn't happy, and I needed to come back. Once again, without intention this time, I was bringing everyone else down. I didn't want it to happen this time. I needed to start over. To make myself better without needing to go and talk to a specialist about it because that terrified me.

Slowly, things started to get better. I was still forcing smiles half of the time, but the other half I was genuinely smiling, and my family could tell because my dimples would show. They saw me coming back, and that is what made me keep fighting. I had decided it was time to figure out my future.

I was 23 years old with no idea of what I would do with my life. I had 'talked' to my dad every night, begging him to help me figure this out, but I was still lost. One particularly horrible day I didn't want to talk to anyone, I went to my room and blocked everyone out. I laid on my bed for hours just listening to music with my headphones in, ignoring the rest of the world. I talked to my dad again while I was doing this. Telling him it was now or never, I needed to know what to do. And that's when my new future started. I basically had my answer my whole life. I had music. I was taught at a young age by my parents that music will always be there. Through the good or the bad, you could always turn to it. It was one of those few 'constants' I had my entire life. I would study music and become a producer. I would help make music that could one day help someone like me get through the worst time of their lives.

Even though I am not currently in school due to personal reasons, I have my new start. I know what I am doing with my future. And for the first time in a long time, I truly smile every time.

There will always be bumps in the road, and doors opening for you and then closing right as you go to walk through them. There will always be negativity. But, you have the strength inside of you to turn it into something amazing. To get a new start when you need it, or to finish the race you are currently in. Life is full of twists and turns and adventures you never thought you would go on and you can decide to go through it like the warrior that you are, or you can hide from them and stay in your 'comfort zone.' The choice is yours, which will it be?