Throughout your life, you will graduate to different levels; you will continuously advance to different mindsets, maturities and desires. Although everyone is different, the levels commonly occur when a big event crashes into your life, like moving away to college, moving into your first house, being diagnosed with a chronic illness, having your first child, or having all of your children move away. You may have planned and planned, or it might have crept into your life with no warning. But, for some, these events are shattering. These events can take you from something so stable and toss you, confused but fighting, into a war. You may be placed in a new environment, where everything is new or have those you care most about taken away. You may forget your allies and lose yourself, and that is where it becomes difficult because you can not fight a war alone or without purpose; it becomes a journey.

To many, there is a belief that you can hit rock bottom, and only once you hit that rock bottom can you start moving back up. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Rock bottom is an idea that is arbitrary; it can get lower and lower and lower. You can not simply wait and take the struggles of this new stage in life lying down because the situation will never change. There has to be a point when you decide that you want to fight back. You have to burn those old thoughts and those old ways of life in order to clear your mind for more positive thoughts, goals, and mentalities to grow. Whether it be letting go of old high school friends, finding other goals and hobbies to advert your time and creativity, or making friends and socializing in a town where you know no one, these are ways to claw back to a more positive stability.

Even if you are making your steps to stabilize this new stage of your life, you will still fall. Nothing is fool proof and you will fail over and over again. This is something you have to realize and come to terms with; this is something that happens to everyone. There will always be that person that bails out or days when health is keeping you from doing the most simple of tasks. Some days will be harder than others, but you have to realize that these are only bumps; you have to realize that these are only temporary.

Ultimately, this is a war you win. You will find yourself or reinvent into who you were meant to be all along. You will find those who will stand by you through anything and grow into a stronger person from the experiences that have occurred. You will grow to love college and all that it has to offer, and you will get used to the new experience of owning a house and being an adult. You will get used to life with a chronic illness and learn to love life all the same. You will worship every second you have with your baby and then reawaken the things you thought you had to give up when he or she runs off to college. In the end, you will know the war was necessary in order for your garden to grow and flourish.