A good friend visited me this weekend. She is going through her 'quarter-life' crisis. She is only 22 years old but she has matured so much since we first met. She moved away from a broken home after high school to attend college and finally be on her own. She was the only college student I knew who worked over 40 hours a week in two jobs and went to school full time. She had no financial help from her divorced parents and she was afraid to take out loans.

In March, she moved back home to live with her mother and attend a private university there because she could not handle the stress of 'doing it on her own' any longer. Her parents continue to fight and the family is torn a part. She has tried to find herself and continues to ask, "who am I, where am I going with my life, when will I have the courage to move on, why do I stay so sad"?

Listening to her current chapter in life, I remembered my own struggles just two years ago, when I too was 22. My grades suffered because I worked so hard to bring in a small paycheck that merely helped me pay rent. Food was scarce, I lost so much weight that year, and I would fall to sleep with a sore stomach on a matt on the floor in my box of an apartment. Mom and Dad couldn't really help me, they did not know my condition because I didn't want to worry them, but I soon had to confront them and we worked out a plan. A lack of money was not the only thing I faced . . . a lack of friends, a failing relationship, and loneliness added to the disorder. But somehow, I pulled myself from it. With determination, I swore to myself that things were soon to change for the better, and they did.

We go through life learning and building ourselves from our experiences. In our twenties, we ask ourselves who we are and why we live the way we do. If you do not act upon building yourself from the experiences, you may fall into a deep depression and fall away from life. Don't. Life can be a beautiful thing when you find it.

A wise man once told me, "savor every moment, good and bad, and learn from your experiences". He also said, "Protect your name". I took it as, educate yourself, whether it is through your creativity or through a college education it does not matter, but build your name through positive and constructive things.

We all go through different experiences, but we grow from them in similar ways. If they are hard times, we cry. Crying builds us and helps us get through the hard times emotionally. Believe it or not, but I've learned this to be true.