Four A.M. I lay awake in a foreign bed with groggy eyes and a racing mind. I frantically thought to myself, “God, I have to submit my history essay by Tuesday, but I have to be there when my aunt gets home from the hospital, but this research will take hours, but they’ll hate me even more than they already do, but my grades will drop severely if I don’t put in my all into this, but my relationships will fall apart because I don’t put my all into them.” I am needed everywhere, but I am only one person, and there just never is enough time. Needed, yet never wanted. I was exhausted.
   It was January of 2021 and my family had just gone on a 3-hour trip to my cousin’s house. Last week’s news was still replaying in all of our minds. My uncle had died in a car crash, leaving my cousins fatherless. Near to 100 people surrounded me and watched over the coffin with teary eyes. I was never particularly close to my uncle, or any relatives. Still, as someone who can absorb other people’s emotions like a sponge, I was filled with uncomfortable grief that I had never anticipated. Emotions rumbled inside of me as I endured one month in hell, or as others called it, Maryland.
   Selfishly I thought to myself, “my cousins and aunt have so much support, almost 100 people showed up to the funeral, and even more stopped by to give their condolences. They are never left alone” because even though I was constantly around people since the incident, my loneliness grew so large that it consumed me. I was forced to socialize and I always needed to know exactly what to say. It was all building up; my entire family was against me for seemingly no reason, I was behind in school, and my presence was fading away.
   There were times when I didn’t have any homework, but to spend my precious seconds with people who isolated me? No, instead I used my spare time online where I could consume media that wasn’t filled to the brim with darkness. I discovered light, in my favorite artists, songs, and poems. I was lucky enough to find these few fragments of heaven that kept me afloat. Eleven words repeated in my headphones over and over again: “the light is coming to get back everything the darkness stole.” Oh, how I wanted to believe these words so badly, but my life was quickly slipping away from my grasp.
   My mom constantly demanded, “get off that phone!” I wish that I could yell back, don't you dare take away my oxygen! I would crumble within a few hours, and no one would be there to pick up the pieces. Perhaps my sister, parents, a few friends and cousins. No, there wouldn't be close to 100 people mourning me. Though I never yelled back, instead I locked myself away with the heavenly parts of the earth in my heart. They reminded me that there’s something on the ground worth preserving. I couldn't let myself float away into space just yet.
   My life has been filled with dark tunnels and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see the light at the end of them. Looking back, I wish that I could tell my past self that the weight on my chest would soon be lifted. I am grateful that my younger self persevered. I had latched onto the fact that better and brighter days would soon come, and they did. For the first time in my life, I started to find a rhythm to what I always thought was dissonance. Of course, the rest of my life won’t be a straight path - “there’s up and downs, and there’s drops,” as my favorite song goes - but I will be prepared next time I face a drop.