The little moments in life are the ones we rush past and move on from so quickly — but these are the moments when you need to pause, take a deep breath and recognize the people you are with, the feelings you are having and that they are fleeting. You are all growing, but you’re growing together — and that's enough. Embrace the long dinners at the dining hall, where you're just sitting and talking about nothing, the nights full of laughs and not enough sleep and the bad jokes cracked to try and get someone to stop crying. These are the moments that define your life, not the number of times you got an award or your grade on your last midterm.

These things seem really simple, but they took a lot of effort. The cycle of self-hate is a vicious one, and I’ve realized that breaking away from it  takes a lot of work.