Kendal's Incorporating Quotes

Writer Atticus said that "we are made of all those who have built and broken us." And at the end of everything I had experienced in the last eighteen months, that was who I had become. In a way, I did not know how to be or even who to be after who I had become. According to me, I appeared to be the same person because my name hadn't changed, but I was also completely different. Trauma and also the miracles I had experienced had left me broken but also whole. Broken at the point of not being able to fully understand what had happened to me. Whole because of the people I had met that had helped changed my heart for the better.

In the midst of both the depression and anxiety of my situation, but also not being fully encompassed within one or the other, I looked to the brightest light in the sky and thought it will all be okay. With that, I echo the words of Maya Angelou:

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that is rooted in pain

I rise

The triumph in rising from the dirt of a trial made the bright light in the sky shine brighter that day and fueled my heart to keep going.

Allowing myself to write freely about the experiences that have left me heartbroken, something that has helped me is the thought that when a writer writes a story down for the first time, I've heard that it should be thought of as the writer telling herself the story. I read that somewhere at sometime and it has shaped my unique perspective about the book I am trying to complete. 

Ana's Incorporating Quotes

“I hope you do not let anyone else's expectations direct the course of your life.”
―Julianne Donaldson, Edenbrooke

No one around me should determine where my life goes. There have been numerous times in my life where I have changed what I wanted to do or say because of what someone else thought—but that shouldn’t be how life works. I have found when I write down my goals and dreams on paper, it’s easier for me to follow through with them no matter how others respond.    

I have learned, in order to make the most out of life, I need to change my perspective during certain parts of my life:

 “You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

During the hardest parts of my life, I have learned to smile and laugh about it. As I do, years later, I look back and am astonished I was able to go through what I did. Looking at the positive in circumstances always makes me happier. There is always something I can be happy about, even when my world is falling apart.

Sometimes I need to laugh in order to make myself feel better during the hard times. After all, “If you can laugh in the face of adversity, you’re bullet-proof,” as Ricky Gervais says. Laughing not only is good for the brain, it also helps to calm my situations. No matter what I’m going through day by day, laughing makes everything seem easier and prepares me to take on the challenges that come my way. Sometimes people ask why I’m always happy. What they don’t know sometimes is that I’m not always happy; what they see is how I react.