Once there was a girl

Once upon a time there was a girl who thought she had a perfect life. But then one day through a series of unfortunate events and a very bad case of PMS, she messed it all up. She willingly took the blame and credit for the initial mistakes that lead to the downfall. But she could never have imagined there at the beginning of her downfall how much farther she could keep on sliding down the slippery slope. Everytime she thought she had her foot back on a rung on her way back up the ladder out of the pit she was in, she lost her footing. Or, as it seemed at the time, someone came and yanked her feet out from under her. One day things got so rough that she turned to the person next to her and abruptly declared that she had finally reached the lowest point ever. In what would become a telling moment in her life, but not for several more months, her companion and supposed friend very condescendingly told her that she hadn't yet seen pain or misery, and that she was just so spoiled that only she could think that her troubles in life were actually trials. The telling moment wasn't in what he said. It was what followed. It was that she believed him. She had reached such a low point in her life that she was willing to believe people when they told her how to feel about her own trials. She had finally lost the ability to really thing for herself. It wasn't long after that bitter surrender that things got really bad. And then in one angry swipe one night, she realized the mistakes she had been making. She had allowed others to tell her what to do, how to feel, and who to be for too long. So she made the changes that needed to be made, no matter how painful, and how terrifying.
Now the girl is happy again. But this time it is different. She recognizes how easy it is to accidentally walk off a cliff, miss a turn, forget a crucial detail. She knows how easy it is to lose everything all in the blink of an eye. She knows now that in spite of all the trials of man around her she can be happy. In the face of disaster she can find a reason to smile. It has been a long road back, but she knows every inch of the road, and knows how to go back and retrace her steps in case she gets lost again. She sees her mistakes even more vividly now, and believes that is a good thing. She knows that what doesn't kill us, doesn't necessarily make us stronger. Sometimes it makes us weaker and more prone to infection. So she makes sure she takes her vitamins and keeps herself strong, so that the injuries are minor. And she knows she can do it herself, because her family and friends taught her that. And she thanks them for that.