Lessons Learned

And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,

And everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night,

Every change, life has thrown me,

I'm thankful, for every break in my heart,

I'm grateful, for every scar,

Some pages turned, Some bridges burned,

But there were lessons learned.

And all the things that break you,

Are the things that make you strong!

You can't change the past,

Cause it's gone.

And you just gotta move on,

Because it's all

Lessons learned.    

                                           -Carrie Underwood, 2005

     Lately I have had this song on repeat and I could not figure out why. It has always been a staple song but lately I have needed  it in a why I hadn't in a long time, not since it first became a staple... 

When I was seventeen and applying to college I got stuck on this song, fell completely head over heals for it and wrote one of the most important essays of my writing life about it.... dun dun dun... my college essay.  I had a really rough time in high school and at the time I took that song in as a sign of hope and a reminder that things were on the up and up, that I had truly learned my lessons and moved into a new chapter. Boy I was wrong.  Seventeen year old me was an idiot if she though that her lessons were over.  

     I wrote that essay all about how hard high school had been, having suffered from severe depression for much of it, and about how much one person meant to me, how she had fixed everything.  Apparently my life was perfect again because one 24 year old youth group leader had stepped in and made me a priority, made me feel valued and safe. Little did I know that only a few months later I would be in my first semester of college crying on the bathroom floor  of my dorm with an empty stomach and another razor in my hand. Fighting the same demons that had run my life since  I could remember.  Little did I know then that the same person I had boasted about in that essay would be absent at those times when I needed her and was not her charge, that the relationship I had with her was fragile.  As the years went on there is so much that I would have loved to share with that depressed, scared girl.  Lessons that I learned painfully, beautifully, with my whole heart and through other people's actions. 

Lessons I've Learned Since 2007

• I've learned that people are not always going to be there, sometimes your own words are the only ones that will soothe
• I've learned that NOTHING turns out how you think it will but more often than not that's a good thing
• I've learned that scars are nothing to be ashamed of but nothing to boast about either, they are the private reminders of your darkest moments
• I've learned that there is no such thing as a "cool" person or "not cool" person, there is just a spectrum of awesome and everyone falls on it at a different point
• I've learned that you have to be your own advocate, things do not just fall in your lap and people cannot read your mine
• I've learned that you don't have to know everything about someone to be their best friend, everyone needs their own secrets
• I've learned that family is the one constant; time, distance... it doesn't matter, when you come back together everything is the same
• I've learned not all change is bad, although I still struggle with this one on a regular basis
• I've learned that there are some songs that will change your life and some that you will forget in two weeks
• I've learned that we are all changing all the time without even knowing it and a year from now remember who you used to be is nearly impossible
• I've learned that a dog can make a place in your heart in no time and stay there forever
• I've learned that learning is so much more important than I ever gave school credit for
• I've learned that life throws curveballs on the regular and all we can do to prepare is keep our eye on the ball
• I've learned that my favorite politicians are not always right 
• I've learned no one, with the exception of my mom, is always right