Imagine this; you’re standing alone in the middle of Times Square in New York City. A man honks his horn at a pedestrian crossing the street, a man in a suit shoves past you while yelling into his phone, a woman pushing a screaming toddler in a stroller tries to make her way by a group of business men arguing in the middle of the sidewalk about whether MYLAN would be a good investment on the stock market or not, a homeless man sits with his back up against a cold, grey, brick building with a sign that says “God bless” written in black sharpie across an old tattered piece of cardboard. And then there’s you. Now, think about each one of those people. What’s your impression of them? The man honking his horn at the woman crossing the street was on the way to the hospital to see his first child being born. The man in the suit who shoved his way past you was heading from work to pick up his sick daughter from school. The woman pushing her child in a stroller was taking her son to daycare after her nanny called in sick this morning. And the homeless man sitting up against the building has decided that today will be his last day on earth. He lost his job after having a PTSD attack in the middle of a business meeting and was so broke he couldn’t afford his house anymore, so his wife left him. Now think about each one of those people again. What do you think about them now? Out of all 7.4 billion people in the world, everyone is different and everyone’s situation is different. As a human race, we tend to judge people based on their current life situation, the way they’re acting, the way they look, the way they dress. Just about anything and everything that we could possibly judge someone on. Growing up, I was one of those people who was judged based off every little thing. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure everyone was judged at one point or another because of something, but for me, it was everything.

Ever since third grade I was always the odd one out. Sure, I was involved in things like Girl Scouts and swim team, but that was it. I always tried to get more involved in sports and school activities like student council, softball, cheerleading, but no one ever voted for the chubby kid, or picked me to be on their team, or wanted their team to be known as “the one with the weird girl on it.” I was always left on the outside, looking in. By the time fifth and sixth grade rolled around, everyone had already outgrown their awkward stage, which for many of us included and extra 15 to 20 pounds of weight, brace face, a bad haircut, and even worse wardrobe choices. For me, fifth and sixth grade is when my awkward stage was just beginning. I weighed close to 160 pounds, I was 5’0” (tops), had hair cut up to my earlobes, was blessed with braces, and was even more lucky to find out I needed glasses. And for the cherry on top, I decided to wear a Justice (which consisted on a white button-up collared shirt, black vest with a peace sign bejeweled on it, and a purple and blue plaid tie) for my very first middle school yearbook photo. Damn, did I think I looked hot in that. As you can imagine, that’s when the bullying began. People laughed at me, taunted me, called me names, and hardly no one talked to me. I mean, why would they? Who would want to be seen with the 11-year-old girl who wore a tie for her yearbook picture? Believe it or not, there was one girl, and soon enough this girl became my very first best friend; Bailey. We did everything together from participating in drama club, to having sleepovers and makeovers just about every weekend. As seventh grade rolled around, my awkward stage was coming to an end. My braces came off, I discovered what contacts were, my fashion choices were slowly getting better, and my hair was finally growing out. Things were getting better and people were starting to forget what I looked like the year before. The only down side to growing older was the fact that people are going to start going their separate ways; Bailey was moving about 40 minutes away. After she moved, I was all on my own again. Sure, we kept in touch, but it wasn’t the same as having her right there by my side every day.

Eighth grade rolled around and I was finally a normal looking human being again. This year was one of the highlights of my life, but it was also the start of one of the hardest parts, too. I wasn’t as close with Bailey as I had been before but that’s also understandable considering we didn’t see each other nearly as much anymore, but no matter what she was always my best friend. It had been a while since we talked and one girl that I was starting to get fairly close with, Carly, was also friends with my Bailey. In fact, they had grown up right down the street from each other. One night, I was babysitting and as I was leaving I got a called that changed my life forever. Carly called me in tears saying that one of our friends had killed himself. I wasn’t as close with him as I wish I would have been, but non-the-less I still knew him and it was hard to believe that someone I knew had taken their own life. That day is a day that, no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to forget. It was one of the worst pains that I have ever felt. After that day, my life changed forever. I was no longer just the friend that cared for everyone else more than I cared about myself, but I became what is known as the “mom friend,” and to this day I am still that. Being a mom friend means you’re always looking out for someone else; you make sure they’re making the right choices; you make sure they get home safe; you basically watch after your friends as if they were your own children. Hence the name “mom friend.”

Flash-forward to the next year; freshman year of high school, the start of the best years of your life, right?! Wrong. High school, for me, was the longest most challenging years of my life; physically, mentally, and emotionally. There were bad grades, heartbreaks, broken trust, little social life, and even fewer friends. Transferring schools for high school I hoped to reinvent myself from who I was in middle school. I wanted to forget the bullying, forget the bad times, and focus on having friends and having fun in high school. Sadly, I focused too much on that and let everything else fall to the wayside. I had gotten involved with cheer and swim team, but sadly forgot to get involved in my schoolwork. I finished my freshman year with a 2.2 GPA and had yet to find a group of people that I fit in with. When I say a group of friends I don’t mean I didn’t talk to anyone, I talked to a lot of people. Just none of these people I talked to outside of school and I think the only reason we talked to begin with was because we saw each other five days a week and didn’t have a choice. By the time sophomore year came, I knew I had to start focusing on my grades, which limited my chance of finding a group of friends even more. But the one thing that every high schooler looks forward to about sophomore year is their sweet sixteen. For mine, I threw a small party, which a lot of my family that I hadn’t seen in a long time, came in town for which made it even more memorable for me. One of the people that came was my grandmother. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, that was the last birthday that I would spend with her. My party was in early December and by January she had been diagnosed with cancer again. The next 11 months with stressful, tiresome, heartbreaking, and eye-opening. I was lucky enough to be able to see and spend time with my grandma more in those 11 months than I had in my whole life. But just like all good things, it must come to an end. In the early morning hours of December 1, 2014, my grandmother passed away. I will always remember her as the bright-spirited lady that she was. Not once did she ever show fear of any kind to her grandchildren or her children, but deep down inside I know she was just as terrified as the rest of us, if not more. To me, she will always be the strongest fighter that I have ever known. The rest of my junior year after that was hard. My grades started to slip again, my family began fighting battles of their own, and I did too. After the loss of my grandmother, I would often find the littlest things sent me overboard. I spent many nights’ afterschool sitting on my bathroom floor crying to the point where my nose would bleed or I would go into a panic attack because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe. But no one knew. I didn’t want them to know. I didn’t like making people worry about whether I was okay or not because I knew that everyone else had their own problems and I didn’t want to bother them with mine.

Soon enough, senior year and graduation were here. As a freshman when you hear a senior say “these next four years go by fast,” you don’t believe them. You sit there and think to yourself “no, you’re crazy. I have all the time in the world.” But when you’re sitting there, four years later filling out your cap and gown order form, you think back on the last four years and say “man, where did the time go?” It really does go by fast, whether it be good or bad or a little mixture of both. Either way, you still finish with some regrets, a few “what ifs,” and at least one “wait, did that really happen?” There were many times when I didn’t think I would make it out of middle school alive, and then a few more thoughts like that in high school with an occasional “can someone just hit me with a bus already” thought, but I did it. And here I am today, a college freshman working my way towards a nursing degree.

I bet after reading all of that you’re wondering why I just shared basically my whole life story with the millions of people who I don’t know. While it was hard for me to decide whether I wanted to share all this or not, I think it’s important. I think it’s important because it bring me back to the people in Times Square; each one of us is fighting our own battles and even though it might not look like it on the outside, you never know for sure what happens behind closed doors. So the next time you laugh at the student who has a torn up pair of shoes, or the person at the gym who looks a little funny running or is a little overweight, stop and think for a minute what they might be going through in their personal life. It might surprise you.