the worst thing to ever happen to me

I strongly believe that when someone is experiencing a very low point in life, the best thing that can happen to them is the worst thing that’ll ever happen. 

This of course doesn’t literally mean the worst thing like war or homelessness. But maybe it does. 

This whole idea stems from my experience so I cannot say that this applies to everyone but it does to me and many people in my everyday life.

Almost a year ago I went out for coffee with my mom, my godmother and her daughter. We discussed about everything in life. The last time I had seen my godmother our discussion was about me moving to England soon to study abroad. This time around we talked about how I only stayed for two months and then I got kicked out. That is the worst thing that ever happened to me. It also turned out to be the best, eventually, but only because I made use of it. 

When I got kicked out of college my world was shuttered. Before it, I had my next three years all planned out. I had a goal and a visible direct path towards it all in front of me. The world seemed full of hope and opportunities. It was seemed stable and sure. So when I had to leave, I lost everything. I lost my path in life, I lost my faith in achieving my goals, I lost all hope that I could ever recover from this and become who I could have been if I stayed in university. 

It took me a full year, a full circle to get over it, or at least learn to live with it. 

As a child I grew up very lucky and privileged. My family was wealthy, I could have everything in this world. My parents were most of the time supportive and understanding, as much as parents can be. This is something my sister would disagree on. But I could be anything I wanted and I would always have their support but economically and personally. 

My last year of high school was a very dark period for me. My mental health was deteriorating, my panic attacks were getting worse and more frequent by each day. That was when I started relying heavily on unhealthy coping mechanisms. I developed problems with eating, self harmed and I isolated myself a lot. Which sounds a bit weird because on my senior year I also made the best and closest friends I’ll ever have. 

All these were a result of me trying to gain control. I was never straight A’s student, not even close. I never was interested in school and for many years I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. On my last years of high school I understood that the greek system was just not fit for someone like me and in all ways possible. I was always an artist, something heavily discouraged my the greek government. 

So on the year when school was the toughest, as expected, I crashed. I didn’t know how to handle everything and I couldn’t get myself to do anything related to school which seemed like the most important thing in the world at the time. Seeing myself failing to complete my tasks I started feeling like I had no control over my life. It’s very easy, especially for a teenager, to feel too much unreasonable pressure and to not know how to deal with it healthily so they escape in whatever works out, even if that means they’re destroying themselves. 

If you asked me 4 months after I finished high school what was the most important thing I learnt in high school, I would give you the same answer I would give you today; debating. I was always very interested in being able to get educated on things that matter and being able to share my knowledge and point of view, especially when it was about controversial and unsolvable debates. My first ever debate in my IB English class, ended in a very heated argument with my classmates and our teacher had to stop it. The last debate we had was about the most controversial topic we ever discussed in that class and we had a peaceful conversation that went on for 4 hours. Learning how to form ideas and express them properly was the best thing I learned in high school. It is the only knowledge from then that I still use in my day to day life. Because what I understood then was that debates are never about changing someone’s opinion directly, or solving the problem. Philosophers and activists haven’t solved these debates, high school students are not the ones that will find the secret recipe. It’s about educating yourself, listening and trying to understand to a view different than yours. 

What I am trying to get to with this is that the things that were stressing me out at the time, were never that important. The things I actually invested in, even though they seemed stupid, are the ones that got me where I am today. 

But let’s go back the feeling of having no control. I felt a lot in a high school, but when I got kicked out of England, I for the first time, understood what it actually meant. Because that was the first time in my life when I had something I spilt blood and tears for, get taken away from me and me having no power whatsoever to change that. That’s why it was the worst thing that happened to me. It was my first time experiencing true unfairness. It was my first, of the many that followed, slap of adulthood. 

But a slap shakes you. When you get to the bottom, you have no choice but to go up. You have to learn to live with every version of yourself you never got to become. And you have to find a different path. But when it’s hard, there is no path. So you have to choices, two options, you either make your own path or stay still and wait for one to appear by itself. 

All in all, leaving England was the hardest thing I ever did. A part of me will always miss it and wonder what would life be if I had stayed, but it’s not really important, because I didn’t. 

But also leaving gave me so many good things. I discovered so much about myself and the world in all the free time it gave me. I was kind of forced to. I traveled, I met so many interesting and beautiful people, friends that mean the world to me. Through the people I met I realized for the first time with certainty that there’s not just one way to live my life. I don’t need a conventional life in order to make it. There’s so many options if you want and look for them. I accomplished so much in the past year, more than I would ever be able if my life had turned out the way I expected it too. I learned how to drive, I got my first job, I learned how to tattoo, I realized that what I want to do in this life is explore and meet as many places and people as possible. I am constantly in search of a home in everyone and every place I meet. 

 The best thing that can happen to someone is the worst thing that’ll ever happen to them.