At some point in your life, you have to come to terms with the things that you have done and the things that have been done to you. We all go through things, but not everyone can go through them. I’ve seen a lot of people who have had harrowing experiences try to change things like the people they hang with, the places they visit, how they look, how they act, even where they live. And many of them talk about how no matter what they do they have this emptiness and a kind of discomfort inside of them that they cannot fill. The reason for this is that no matter where you go or what you change, you cannot outrun yourself. You will always be there, so you need to learn how to live with yourself and your experiences, or the outcomes are very few and dreadful (not to scare anyone). Recently I was walking around Brea trying to get to a park close to my friend’s house. I didn’t know the town very well, and on the way, I got lost and my phone died. This was a little worrying at best since I had no problems talking to people and could just ask anyone to use a phone to call my friend up to come pick me up. Rather than doing this, I decided to sit down. You know when you sit alone for a while and just take a pause to take in everything, it was one of those “sessions,” I guess, that’s the best way for me to put it. But anyways, the voice in my head was very loud and has been for the past 6 or so years, which is why I like to quiet it by being in the constant presence of other people or devices to distract myself. I had none of these options though, and it was a pretty day so I decided to sit on a bench and just think about things. I was pretty self-aware at this point that I had to come to a place where I could live with myself and my thoughts, otherwise, I would end up going astray in substances or any other form of overconsumption that would quiet the more upsetting memories that I had gathered. Nothing special made me realize this really, it was just something that I knew I had to do for a while and this was the day that I decided I needed to do something. This is something I have been working on for the past couple of days, but I am proud that I took the first step in realizing that there is something I need to change.  I guess now that I was forced to survive, I had to “thrive,” and this is something we must all learn to do to be at peace with ourselves