Finals are underway and soon it will be summer. A time to relax, take a break from the studies and for some, reflect on the past. To those graduating, congratulations. For those who realized college wasn’t meant for you at this time or in general, I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors and congrats on figuring out what is best for you. I hope you have a happy future.

However, if you are in the opposite boat and this was just not your semester, or even your year, you may wonder if it is possible to pick yourself back up and move forward in life. I believe it is, though my past self may disagree. Thank goodness it is also possible to change who we are. 

If you are down in the dirt, you may be asking yourself, “How is it possible to pick yourself up?” It is impossible to go into complete detail, but I’ll put down the protective wall I keep around myself and try to answer this. 

First, thinking that someone else has it worse than you does not help. By this logic, you are allowing yourself to set the bar as low as you want and when you are in the dumps, you need a sturdy bar. 

I may be experiencing the loss of a close friend and someone else may be dealing with having to wait a semester to graduate because they failed a class. The death of someone close to you is worse than failing a class, but at that moment, in the eyes of each of those people, that is the worst for them. Rating worst-case scenario does not do justice with life. In either case, it is a tragedy that will take time to recover from.

Try to remember that no matter what happens today, good or bad, something wonderful could happen tomorrow. I’ve had to say a final goodbye to more people this year than I can count on one hand. If I add in acquaintances, well I can’t even count the number. 

Another issue people may have to deal with is breakups. For some, a more common occurrence than any person could wish for. For me, I still question if love is even a possibility. For others, y’all may be going through the same issue except never have dated or haven’t really dated at all. Though I admit that I question if love is even possible, I keep moving forward with the hope of the possibility of love. Even if this is a false hope, hope is important. 

Somehow, over the last month and a half, I’ve totaled my car, was unable to work for a time and pretty much everything that could go wrong under the sun did. Some of the problems were my fault, others were not. I was even questioning if it would be possible to save my grade because at the end of the day, all I wanted to do was sleep and not wake up to deal with all the issues that were taking place on this earth. 

But here’s the thing, I learned so much by forcing myself to go forward. I’m not saying it was easy. I’m not saying that I succeed each day. At times I fall right back down, but at the end of the day, it is possible to keep moving forward in life. Even if you make the worst mistakes possible, even if you can’t learn to forgive yourself, learn that you can keep moving forward.

What I’ve learned this semester is that I have some of the closest friends that truly love me, and no matter what happens in life, I’m holding onto them while moving forward in life. 

I’m not saying that is what you will learn when you move forward, but something positive will come out of it. And if you don’t, I ask you to do one thing, try to find faith. I am not saying faith in a god or moral. But faith, faith in something. It could be a religion, yourself, another or just the simple fact that tomorrow is a new day and something unexpectedly wonderful can happen.

For my final line for my final opinion of this semester, I’ll leave you with the words quoted by Whistler in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 Episode 21: Becoming Part I.” A quote that has gotten me through life since I heard it in 1998.

“There’s moments in your life that make you, that set the course of who you’re gonna be. Sometimes they’re little, subtle moments. Sometimes they’re not. Bottom line is, even if you see them coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So, what are we, helpless? Puppets? Nah. The big moments are gonna come, you can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.”