Dominic H.
Photography by Sarah Odgen
If you’re reading this, don’t take anything for granted.
Life can be beautiful, but it can also suck. There’s an infinite number of quotes to remind us that you need the lows to love the highs, or you can only go up from the lows, or you need to learn from the lows and roll with the punches or it’ll get better; Life is like climbing a mountain, there’s ups and downs. One cliché after another and eventually you’ll understand. Honestly… it's all a load of bullshit. None of those cheesy quotes that you’d see painted on a piece of rustic-looking wood hanging in someone’s kitchen are going to make the low moments in life feel any better. What these quotes are missing is the space between the lows and highs. They force the idea that when we’re sad the only way out is to be happy. Why can’t we live in contentment? How do we learn to live between the happy and the sad moments?
For me, it took nearly losing everything. From an early age, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. Throughout middle school, I worked hard in math and science. I made sure I was on accelerated tracks in my courses throughout high school and I got involved in sports and extracurriculars as soon as I could. I was doing everything right to set myself up for exactly what I wanted to do with my life. Until I wasn’t. In high school I quickly found myself involved in the wrong crowd and in and out of unhealthy relationships. Those poor decisions took my life out of my own hands and put it into the hands of the legal system. Suddenly, I wasn’t worried about college but wondering if I’d end up in a youth services home. The truth was I had never actually done anything worthy of the trouble I was facing. I had picked the wrong friends, and the wrong relationships, but never done anything illegal. Still, while I was continuing to push through my academics, I was silently fighting for my future in a way that I couldn’t tell anyone. No one at school knew and that was the best and worst thing at the same time. People would have judged me regardless of whether I had done something wrong, but I had no one to talk to. The closest person I had at the time was my aunt. I had already burdened my parents too much, so I turned to her when I needed to talk. Unfortunately, at the same time, she was fighting what later turned out to be terminal brain cancer. I didn’t know we’d lose her two years later. All we knew was that she had survived a seizure that she wasn’t supposed to and around the same time I made my way out of all the trouble I had gotten myself into.
After it all, we sat down to talk, and she said something I’ve carried ever since. She said we’d both been given a second chance in life and every moment we had after that was a gift. Not one breath after that was taken for granted.
I tell this story with the hope that it spares anyone who reads it from having to come so close to losing everything to finally realize that it's okay just to be content. During that time in my life, it got to the point where I felt like being alive wasn’t worth it anymore. I was fighting so hard to just be happy that I took for granted simply being content in life. There is a beautiful place between the happy moments and the sad moments where we can simply enjoy being alive. When you start to reserve the word happy for the truly amazing moments in life and the word sad for the truly down times, you’ll find room in between where everything is just alright. Don’t take just being here for granted. Life isn’t too shabby when you’re finally okay with the in-between.
Dominic H., Virginia Tech
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