A couple years ago, my father told me a story of when I was younger. He told me one day when I came home from school I came to him sobbing and said, "Dad a boy made fun of me. He said I had frog eyes," (meaning my eyes were big.) He looked at me and told me, "Sammy don't worry about them boys, you know why? Because those same boys are going to say you have beautiful eyes when you get older." He wasn't lying, and me, being the naive girl I was, I blushed at every compliment I got. I believed in love at first sight for a long time. Of course, I went through heartbreaks but I still continued to be kind-hearted and gave people the benefit of the doubt, but there was one guy that absolutely had me since I first met him. As I write this, I laugh because he was everything I ever dreamed of. If there was ever a person who I thought was meant for me, it was him. I never wanted to be with someone so bad. A few months later, he decided that he no longer wanted to be with me. I said, “Okay. I can't force you to be with me.”

To this day, the pain still lingers in my body. I think about the time when we had a picnic at the park and when he took me to the beach. We saw the sunset and I began to cry because I couldn’t believe that at that very moment, I felt as if I had the moon and the stars. Happy doesn't even begin to describe my feeling when I was with him.

I can't say he made me a better person but he did make me stronger. If it wasn’t for him, I would have never been able to learn how to be happy alone. And to be honest I still haven't reach that. I still have times where I feel empty. There are times where I miss how we use to be, but I understand that things will never go back to how they use to be.

After that break-up, I made many decisions without fully acknowledging the consequences. I thought I was okay but I wasn’t. I was heartbroken. I didn’t love myself. I constantly put my feelings to the side and ignored the fact that I was hurting. I was only damaging myself more than what I already was. Now I decided to take my life back. I decided I didn’t want to be sad anymore. I decided I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself anymore. I decided that I was going to be happy by myself.

What I really want to say to my audience is LOVE YOURSELF FIRST. It’s so easy to lose yourself in someone. Loving someone is easy but to love oneself, is the hardest thing to do. It’s a journey that will take time but there will always be people there rooting for your success. Life has just begun, there is a world to see, people to meet, and love to share.