I want to take the moment before my mom takes back her computer to say that everything is temporary. Everything.

I could use a lot of examples and there really isn't a point. Think of this way. Nothing lasts forever, not the good, not the bad. It's temporary.

There's always something that changes. The ONLY constant in life I believe is change. Whatever your facing, no matter how bad, it will get better. I promise. Yes, sometimes it gets worst before it gets better.

So it may hurt now, what you're dealing with. That's okay. Cry, hurt, soak it in. But don't do something you can't take back, like end everything. Don't. Please.

November 2011, I was having an off month. Way off. I thought it was the end of the world. I was just having a hard time. I wouldn't have remembered it, but I googled my name in a with my mom's and a story she wrote about me came up.

I'll post the link and the story because you never know if the newspaper will decide to take it down. I'll just italicize it.

A few years ago, I stood in the wreckage left behind by burglars, speechless and mournful. But my grief was not for the television that no longer occupied its place on the shelf or the video camera that had been taken.
I pined for the tape that had been inside that video camera, with its footage of my youngest daughter's first year and that final vacation with my mother-in-law, who died not too long after.
I felt the same rage and sorrow this weekend on behalf of that youngest daughter.
She'd had a bad week. First, playing by the rules at school, she left the MP3 player she'd gotten as a birthday present a few months ago locked in her PE locker. When she got back from running laps, it had been stolen. Someone knew the combination.
Two days later, the girls and I stopped by a local pharmacy to fill some prescriptions for their dad, who has a potentially disastrous illness. While we were in the store, someone broke into the car and stole her satchel.
The payoff for the thief was a battered bag; two binders stuffed with detailed notes from geometry, history, language arts and Spanish; a pair of contact lenses she had removed 10 minutes before and which she'll now have to do without until we can replace them in January; a well-worn and much-loved copy of a book — her deepest thoughts noted in the margins — that she must have in hand for an essay that's due next week; a student ID card; and the bus pass she needs to get back and forth to school.
Realistically, the value to someone besides Alyson is probably 75 cents. For Aly, though, it was the world, especially because of those detailed study notes. The good news is they were so well done that a couple of her friends had copied them. So she'll be able to copy them back for a couple of her classes. It's just a lot of extra work.
We spent a fun-filled hour dumpster diving, pawing through every garbage can we could find within a four-block radius of the store. Blech. And pointless.
Somebody needs to write an etiquette guide for those who think it's OK to help themselves to other people's stuff because this really emphasizes the "petty" aspect of petty theft.
Forget that the thief had no right to any articles in my car and that the break-in is a crime. That's a different discussion. How hard would it have been for the home burglar to take the tape out of the video recorder or even drop it in the mail once he or she saw what was on it? It's not like my address was a mystery.
And when Alyson's bag was opened and clearly contained nothing of value, it should have been discarded near where it was taken, to give its owner a sporting chance at finding it again.
I assume the person grabbed it and drove away, looking inside a bit further down the road. It would have been easy to circle back around and dump it unobtrusively on the pharmacy grounds.
And yes, I know it seems silly to wish that someone who thinks it's OK to destroy property to get hold of something that does not belong to him would take that extra step to show a little bit of honor.
Still, that's exactly what I wish. It would put a tad of redemption back in the situation.
At the end of the day, if you take my TV and my computer, it makes me mad, but it erodes your soul, not mine. It's the pointless and unkind loss of the tape and the notes and contact lenses that leave me disillusioned and dismayed.

By Lois M. Collins

So I was having a bad month, a very bad month. I did think it was the end of the world, I lost all my homework and my notes and to a little eighth grader like me, and it wasn't like I was going to kill myself over that, but it was hard. But guess what, I got a new book and wrote new thoughts about the text in the margin, the term passed and it didn't matter that I didn't have the notes. I even earned enough money to buy a new IPod (or my mom replaced it, I can't remember, either way it was new)

And you learn from it.

December 2012

I got robbed. Almost. Christmas morning. Or Eve. (Started on Christmas eve, ended around 12:00 am) My parents took my sister and I to see Jack Reacher after we exchanges presents with extended family. I got gifts, but I also got money from my aunt and uncle and it was close to $120 and I didn't have time to put it in the back of my phone. And it was off, so I placed it in the cup holder next to me and when I adjusted in my seat, I knocked it to the ground under the seat of two guys. So I didn't want to disturb the theater by reaching under them to get it so I decided to wait until the movie finished.

About halfway through, I saw the guy in the green hoodie pick it up. So I told my mom where I was promptly shushed. Mostly because the movie was cool and I was loud, but she's also deaf. Partly.  So I waited and waited. I watched Tom Cruise be the hero and I loved it. But as soon as it ended I was up on my feet. In motion, before the lights came on they had rushed out of there and I was in pursuit.

 I stopped them before they even left the movie theater. I got my phone back and they lied and said they were going to turn it in. I still thanked them for giving it back, even after they lied three times and said they didn't have it. I said Merry Christmas and went back to my parents. I told my mom what happened and she said something I didn't catch because I was already running after the thiefs again.

 Why? The money was gone. All of it. I screamed something to my mom giving her a slight idea to my whereabouts, not much, but I didn't care.

I was working on pure adrenaline.

I ran out into a packed parking lot full of cars and not a person in sight and I caught a sight of green and grey. The hoodies they were wearing. And I chased them down, to their car and I asked them what kind of person stole money from a fourteen year old on Christmas. And they called me a liar and said I did not know what I was talking about. And I laughed. They got in their car and I was pissed.

I can't explain my behavior. I blame in on adrenaline from the movie. Grey told me to move, they had to get home and I told them that they would have to run me over because I wasn't leaving without my money.

My parents know this story, my mom's co-workers know this story, everyone in my family knows it. Except part of it. What they didn't know was even though they were blocked in, they were ready to hit me. They backed out towards me. Maybe to scare me, but the girl who can't even get out of bed some mornings out of fear stayed in place. So Green got out of the car and pushed me out of the way and I told him I wasn't moving without the money still. And he laughed and motioned his friend to pull out.

So I did elbowed him in the gut. Hard, as hard as I could. And he went to grab me again and I recited his license plate number from memory. He was pissed and I thought he was going to kill me honestly. I did. He was willing to get in the car and back up. But then something amazing happened. My alarm went off. It rang and I pretended it was my mother. I said where I was and why, I gave the description of the people who I was by and then I stood there and waited, on the phone. With my alarm, praying no one actually called.

And he gave me my money, and I left. As fast as I could. My mom did end up coming to the parking lot, just in time to see the guy pat my arm and apologize and ask not to report him, his buddy had a job problem. He needed the money for treatment. I laughed.


I got to confront a robber. Not the ones who stole my IPod, or my backpack. But a robber. And it felt damn good. Until the adrenaline wore off. It wore off fast, I got into the theater and I was shaking and almost crying. I couldn't explain to my parents what happened until almost ten minutes later. Fear set it. But it felt good and I don't regret it for a second.






So don't kill yourself ever. Just cry over sad moment and laugh over happy things. You'll get through it. I swear.