I have been so selfish, so wasteful of the life that I have been given. I am 21 years old and likely to live longer, but what have I actually done? For retrospect I am writing this at 2:30 am on a Wednesday night or I suppose a Thursday morning. But, if you had asked me an hour ago what I thought about my life. I am confident I would have given one of two answers. Either I would have lied to you and claimed that my life was amazing and I enjoyed every second of it, or if I trusted you enough, I would be honest. I would tell you that most days I wish I were dead and that loneliness follows me into every room like a phantom. I would have told you that fear was a cage I was locked in and that I was drowning in hate for myself. However, right now, in this moment, that is not the story. If you ask me right now I will tell you exactly how I feel. I feel empowered, I feel fortunate, I feel excited, and I feel ready. I feel like this will be hard to explain, but life is so much more than I used to think it was. Yes, life is full of loneliness, heartbreak, and suffering and yes in the moment they can distract you from the good and force you to focus on them long after they have passed. But what we need to understand is that every moment that brings us to our lowest helps us to appreciate every high. Every summer breeze against your face, every hug or kiss shared with someone you love, every moment of laughter, every smile, every joke, and every person you are blessed enough to have met. Life is full of joy and happiness that greatly outweighs any pain or any suffering. We just need to choose what we intend to focus our time on. I’m ashamed that it took me 21 years to figure this out, but I couldn’t even do it without help. It took a girl born one year before me who died one year before this to convince me that life is precious. Her name was Claire Wineland, she died having lived her best life. She died after living more than most live in twice her time. She lived. Claire if you can hear me, thank you. You’ve shown me that  I have a life that is worth being lived. Yes I’ve been hurt, yes I’ve been abused, yes I’ve been broken, and violated, and criticized, but all that time in the dark only makes the light seem that much brighter. I imagine that in your life you spent so much time stuck in the dark that every second of light must have made you squint. You have spread that light to so many people, me included and I will never be able to thank you enough. Life is beautiful, every high and every low is proof that we are still alive and as long as our hearts are beating and our blood is flowing, we can choose how we want to live it. Make a difference, help a stranger, care for the sick, the wounded, and those who just need to feel loved. At the end of the day, you are never guaranteed the next. You are never promised to wake up every morning or to finish every day. Each day is a gift and the time we are given is precious. So when the clock stops ticking will you be proud with how you spent it? Because in life there are no refunds.