When Friends Become Family

The truth is I’m not okay. The truth is I’ve never been more scared in my life. The truth is some days I just want to break, let everything push me over.

But you want to know another truth, another truth that holds me together when the tape starts to peel? My life is filled with some of the most beautiful souls I have ever encountered, in this life or the last. They bring me joy and excitement. And they bring me something else entirely, something that can’t be measured, or weighed, or paid for. They give me hope that there is always a brighter side, always something greater than all the bad, that good really does conquer over evil.

And yeah, this sounds super cliché. It sounds like something out of a commercial, something written on a poster with a picture of a sunset in the background. And yeah, it is a bit cliché. But it is also beautiful. Because even though I’m not okay and I really don’t know when I will be, I know that I have these people who will never let me fall. And should I slip and fall face first, I know they will be there to pick me up.

Real life problems. They aren’t something people can just erase. They aren’t something that can be put aside with a smile and a hug. And believe me, I know that. But that smile, that hug, they do something else. They don’t shield you. No, that’s not quite what it is. The problems are still there at the end of the night. And only I am the one who can dig myself deeper or begin the long climb back up. But I can tell you they sure do make that long, treacherous climb something worth struggling through. They make the climb a little bit more doable, leaving behind small footholds and strong branches for me to lift myself higher.

They show me there is something to push for, that there is something amazing out there. And that is beautiful.

In a world where I could easily fall apart, they hold me up. And they don’t even know they are doing it.

It’s the best part of love, of family.

On Growing Up Poor:

I grew up poor. I’m not saying I grew up without a home, but I remember there were some weeks my family struggled to put food on the table. And now we are comfortable; we have enough for what we need, and a little extra.

I thank my parent’s every day for all the things they provided for me, regardless of the money. They gave me so many lessons, so many things to appreciate and be grateful for, and they did the very best they could, even though the battle was always uphill. I learned a lot from growing up with financial struggle, but I gained a lot of worries from it too. I stress about money on a daily basis. I constantly check my bank account and keep tabs of where I spend, and what on. I tend to opt out of things if I am unsure of the cost and I always ask what the price is first. That is a by product of growing up without money. You are constantly worried about it.

But I also gained a lot from it.

I save whenever I can, I understand the value of things so I rarely spend more than what it’s worth, and when I can, I try to take my friends out as much as possible. That isn’t to say that everyone who grows up from poverty is generous, nor that growing up rich makes you selfish. I just grew up understanding what it was to not have much, so when I do have anything, I want to share it. But growing up poor, you also see the unjust and unfair side of life. You see people with money getting experiences or opportunities you will never get. Because yes, there is a disparity among the rich and poor. Because we live in the real world. And I remember resenting people who were born into money.

But guess what? Being angry at people born into money is just the same as people looking down on you because you were born without it: wrong. No one can help the circumstances of their birth, the economic strings attached to who they are born to, or where. I learned through the struggle of not having money, but many learn through the opportunities of having money. We all learn from our vastly different circumstances and that is wonderful. That we all have different lives to share, different stories to tell, and different strife to survive, is truly wonderful.

We may not all be born on equal footing, with the same opportunities, but we are all aiming for the same thing, to live happy and well. So growing up poor may not have been ideal, but I really did learn a lot. And I am so thankful to my family for everything they gave me and everything they had to sacrifice.

Be grateful for the life you have, it’s the only one you’ve got.

Be good, work hard, and live happy.

| danielle