At one point in my life, everything went dark.
“You can do this. One day at a time. One minute at a time. One second at a time…”

How I got to this point didn’t matter —

It just became another battle to fight,
another attempt to breathe,
and another day to try and live.

I like to give my friends credit and say they were the ones that made me so strong.
They were the ones that kept me around.
They were the ones who helped me function every day.

But perhaps that wasn’t the case —
Could it have been me all along?

What made me strong was the serenity to accept the things I could not change,
Courage to change the things I could,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Once I started balancing emotions with logic,
accountability over blame,
and self-love over hatred —

That is when I became strong.
Those are the principles that gave me light through the darkness.
And that is what kept me going even went the lights went out.