Losing and Gaining
2016 was a bad year they say.
I disagree, in an odd sort of way
Things were bad, and people died
But 2016 was the year I learned not to hide
From myself, from my feelings, from the world as a whole
I tried to stand up and make myself grow.
New Years Eve 2016.
Everyone is there
My new friends
My old friends
The boy that I love
Who would have thought that just a year away
Many of them would be just strangers, passing in the hallways
Whispering about things I don’t have a part in.
That boy that I loved?
Turns out it was a waste.
He apparently loves every girl, if they’re his taste.
I lost a close friend, and a love all in one.
He took people with them, when he went
People I loved, gone, right and left
They talked about me,
How I was selfish
How I was rude
It hurt, but I didn’t come unglued
I learned to soldier on
To stand up, and take it
Because of this loss, I knew I would make it
In the end it was better, because I gained a new perspective.
Love was just around the corner, but not in the form I expected.
Beginning of summer, I sit in a waiting room.
“Nothing to be done” the doctors went,
My cousins life had abruptly been spent.
Life is too short
I began to realize
There’s no point in wasting the time you are given
So I went back to school with a new outlook on living
The friends that I had spent time with, so casually
Now became my everything, my family.
The friend who I had barely even gotten to know at all,
Became the best friend I had ever had
And a love for which I was to fall.
I had to face up to my fears which I had
Many of them deterring me from making a stand
Self-reflection on my anxiety kept me awake
But I learned, this year, how much I could take.
I ran for office, thought I could make a change.
It came to be true, and our school was never the same.
I went to concerts,
to cities,
to new places I had never seen
And all of them left an imprint
Making me better than I had been.
2016 was a bad year they say.
I disagree, in an odd sort of way.
Sure things were bad, and the world seemed a mess.
I lost some good things, but I gained the best.