Sometimes in life, you have to take a break from life. Things such an illness, family in town, trouble with a friend, or even the unexpected. Life takes 6 seconds to change your entire life.  

Recently, a close family member of mine was diagnosed with cancer. The news did not feel real until a month after and I began to realize what was happening. As I began my senior year, the unsureness of the future about my family was even more terrifying than my own future with college. I wanted to take a break from life and school but my responsibilities wanted me to be a hundred places and give my 110% to every single thing. It was tiring. I’m exhausted. But it wasn’t until I started sharing my struggles with people who cared about me. I was terrified that I would be judged by others or given pity and I was scared people would look at me differently. At first, my family decided to not tell anyone until we had all the options. Once I was in a place to share, I shared with people I could trust. I realized I didn’t want to my struggles to burden them, so I talked to Mrs. Lange. She was able to talk frankly and reassured me that difficult things are just events in our life. Our life is comprised of millions of events, one difficult moment will trip you up but is meant to lay the floor ground for an even better moment later. In the moment, everything seems like it’s falling apart around you but something else is being built. Maybe the situation calls for you to take a step back and see the full picture. Others beg for you to talk to someone and the school provides wonderful who care about you and would love to be there for you. In some cases, it is something that requires a little time to understand it before you share. Just remember, taking a break isn’t completely giving up and disappearing but taking time to yourself even if it’s five minutes every day. But the important thing to remember is that there is someone willing to walk through any struggle.

Once time continued on and I learned to take one day at a time. The complexity of the situation reached a high when my dad had surgery recently. During that time, I did step back from a lot of things–like newspaper writing, and I felt terrible that I wasn’t doing more but my family called me more. Life can change in six seconds but that doesn’t mean those six seconds get to stop your life. Life got hard but taking time to cope and then moving forward is essential. A few days ago we got the news that my dad is now cancer free. The many struggles during this period of my life seemed like my life couldn’t get worse, but taking a little break and talking to people who can help, make it better. Take it easy and take the next step forward.