I look up and see my teachers on a big stage. My classmates sitting around me, and others walking across the stage. To my left and see family and friends. I hear my teachers announcing names and the cheer and laughter from the parents in the audience. The sweat building up in my palms and face. And I am experiencing the feeling of being excited but also sad at the same time. My candle was at full flame.

            My class and I were graduating. We were all done with high school and were walking up to the front of the audience to receive our diplomas. My class was very small, only 69 people, so the ceremony didn’t take very long. But my last name starting with an "S" I was close to the end of the list. I saw my friends go up and receive their diplomas, and finally they called my name; I went up, and I received my diploma. I remember looking down and seeing all my family and friends clapping and cheering for me, the feeling was unreal. Receiving my diploma was a small event amidst this whole experience, which is much bigger.

            This experience is explaining what happened in my life during the time of graduating and how my life changed after that. It changed me as a person and helped form who I am today, severed relationships with people, and created new relationships. The experience of graduating started at the beginning of senior year.

            At the beginning of senior year, we were tasked with a Senior Thesis. Throughout the year, we had to keep working on it and meet deadlines, and we had to have it finished it by spring, right before our senior trip. While I was working on this thesis, I thought it was boring and useless, but looking back, I see it as a timeline showing the last bit of school we have left. After this came the senior trip, where my whole graduating class went to Washington DC for a week. This was towards the end of spring and was the last fun thing we would do together. We had a lot of fun the whole week, but all good things must come to an end.

            We got back from the senior trip and then it was college acceptance day. This was the day I found out that all my friends were departing from me. A few were going to NAU, others to U of A, and some going to California and Colorado. I realized that all my friends were leaving. This made my candle flicker as I still knew we still had time together. I was very upset at the thought of this, but I couldn’t let it linger and make me sad, I knew I had to make the most out of the time we had left. School ended and graduation came. After graduation it was summer… our last summer together. We cherished summer and had a lot of fun, and then my friends officially left. I was alone. I felt empty and like I had no one. Things that were fun, no longer seemed to be fun anymore. I started fresh at ASU, and made some friends, but I never made a strong connection because I also did not live on campus. I went home one night from school getting ready to do my regular lay down, do homework, watch Instagram, and then go to bed; when I heard the news that one of my old friends who I had not seen in a while got in a horrible motorcycle accident. At this point in time my candle was barely alive and was dwindling.

            I was shocked by this and reached out to him immediately. He answered like we saw each other the other day, when really it had been years. I made my way over to the hospital and hung out with him for a long time. I had found my new friend. I knew his recovery would be long, but that I would be right there next to him helping him through it. When he was finally able to walk again, we started hanging out and going on adventures. Furthermore, some of his best friends I also knew and hadn’t hungout with in a while. We all hungout and had a blast; I had gained many new friends. We had very similar hobbies, so it was easy to make plans. We hangout just about every day and we even work together. When my old friends were in town for break, I introduced them to my new friend, and they clicked as well and got along. I was happy at this now knowing we could all be good friends. This re-lit my candle. This brings me to present date and leaves my experience continuing but shows the role it played in my life.

            I thought that when all my friends left me, I would become sad and depressed and never be able to make friends again. That was all I could think about, and I started to believe it. My happiness was like a candle slowly being suffocated from the lack of air, and when the candle was dwindling and was almost out a fresh blow of oxygen re-lit it. I had new friends and was happy again. This experience will stick with me forever because it showed how in life situations arise all the time and you cannot only focus on the negatives. Many negatives were being thrown at me, but I took a leap of faith hanging out at the hospital and I landed. This experience was eye opening. It showed me that in life when one door closes, two open and that negatives distract you from the other positives going on around you. One door closed, which was my friends moving away, and many more opened, which was me making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and making many new memories.

            Looking into the future I will use this experience to help me in hard times down the road. Life is not perfect, and we will all experience hardships; what this experience has taught me is to remember that even when it looks like nothing is going your way you must remain optimistic and not let the negative overcome you. You must actively seek that gust of oxygen so that your candle doesn’t die. Without an optimistic outlook, you will never be able to see the other doors opening right in front of you, and without courage you will never be able to take that leap of faith and change your life for the better. I thought that I would never recover, but I remained positive and optimistic, and I did recover. It is because of this experience that I will always try to keep a positive and optimistic outlook on life